Cornshucker77
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,691
- Location
- Northeast Nebraska, USA
Looking good Zombie. Great photos.And thank you Sir! Yeah, I've been using that little old wood bench as a low budget photo platform for a while now. It was originally part of a backyard/patio table set, the rest of which is long gone. How and why it survived I have no idea, but it's slight curve makes it easier to show off my meager hat collection.
Speaking of which last year I finally managed to give my Dark Brown Fed a Diamond crease. I previously hadn't had much luck with Diamond creases, so I was surprised by how easily it accepted it's new shape. I liked it so much that I went a little crazy and re-creased my other Feds as well, but reading through this and the other Akubra threads recently made me realize I hadn't taken any photos of them on my head, so I remedied that a couple of weeks ago.
And back on the bench, to show the shapes from above.
I clearly have a preferred "look" for my Feds. The Dark Brown looks a little dusty in the photos, but it isn't; that's just how the felt photographs after nearly a decade of handling.
After doing quite a bit of research I went with their Novapelle which is a "pre-distressed" cow hide. I like the looks of the jacket and wanted to wear it as a practical jacket rather than simply a costume item, and thought the cow hide would be more durable in the long-run than goat or lamb. Also, I went with a "custom" jacket because the measurements of their "off the rack" version didn't quite match up to my own measurements. At the time (2008) I had read a number of complaints about the quality of their work, but the jacket I received had none of that and fit exactly as I wanted it to...with one minor exception--the sleeves. At the time a lot of people advised adding an inch or two to the sleeve length to compensate for the wrinkling/creasing at the elbows as the jacket gets worn and broken-in. I had experienced this with previous leather jackets, so it made sense and I added an inch to my measurements. The end result is that the sleeves are a little longer than I'd like and haven't "shrunk" due to the expected wrinkling/creasing, but that's really a minor quibble. Another minor complaint is that the "distressing" done to the Novapelle has rendered the leather anything but water-resistant; in fact, mine absorbs water like a sponge, so I don't wear it when it's raining. Otherwise, the jacket is exactly what I wanted, was soft and very comfortable the first time I put it on, and has gotten softer and even more comfortable as I've worn it and broken it in a bit.