vintage your Mid-Weight Horsehide

[beaprepp]

Is it possible to create a weathered patina that gives a Mid-Weight Horsehide aero leather jacket that perfectly worn-in, vintage look?

 

[resortes805]

Other than by wearing it over an extended period of time?

 

[kojax]

i bought a a-2 real mccoy horsehide last sept it was so stiff i almost sold it lol. but now i love it it broke in very well i wore it all winter and shovled snow in it. it turned out to be a very nice jacket i like it better then my gibson barnes a-2 goatskin jacket

 

[HoosierDaddy]

There have been several techniques that have been tried by some members on the VLJ...from the hot water treatment ( sometimes losing some of the finish in certain areas)..to harsher attempts with acetone to sandpapering the high spots. However...few have turned out to be very convincing..IMO. A 'weathered' patina is difficult to artificially duplicate. Wearing it often may surprise you at how quickly it can weather on it's own. Using a spray bottle of tap water can help relax the jacket substancially. Spray it until it is quite wet...and wear until dry. Do this several times...and it will form to your body and gain a more 'lived in' look. While wet..you can even shape the collar...and other areas by hand.
HD

 

[beaprepp]

do you think it`s possible to create that look?

http://www.jcrew.com/mens_category/outerwear/leather/PRDOVR~17353/17353.jsp

I ask because I have some size problems.
To get the perfect fitted jacket I talked a lot with Amanda and she said I am between two sizes. I want a slim Jacket, but I was too often in the gym.
I could go with a smaler size if I take the m/w HH, she said.
Unfortinally I read that the m/w HH even looks after 10 years brand new.

 

[blethook]

What colour is the MW HH Aero jacket?

My experience with the (jerky) seal Aero MW HH is that it takes minimal wearing to start seeing the grain & the red undertone. It doesn't take much of wearing to rub off the shine & the seal colour...

Apart from hot water treatment which I wouldn't do myself, you can " knead & massage" the hide to create (artificial) worn effect.

 

[Edward]

There have been several techniques that have been tried by some members on the VLJ...from the hot water treatment ( sometimes losing some of the finish in certain areas)..to harsher attempts with acetone to sandpapering the high spots. However...few have turned out to be very convincing..IMO. A 'weathered' patina is difficult to artificially duplicate. Wearing it often may surprise you at how quickly it can weather on it's own. Using a spray bottle of tap water can help relax the jacket substancially. Spray it until it is quite wet...and wear until dry. Do this several times...and it will form to your body and gain a more 'lived in' look. While wet..you can even shape the collar...and other areas by hand.
HD

I've been intrigued for some time by the notion of artificially aging a leather jacket like this. The debate on 'fake wear' has raged for a decade and more in the electric guitar community, where some love it as they can have a new guitar that they can afford which immediately looks like a surviving original from the fifties. Others snort with derision and dismiss them as fakes and wannabes and insist you should put your own wear in the guitar..... though they don't have the same attitude towards an otherwise identically beaten up guitar which just happens to have been played hard over a long period of time. As is see it, it's horses for courses. I'd be reluctant to deliberately mistreat and put artificial wear upon a jacket I had spent that much on, preferring instead to let it develop it's own wear over time. I enjoy the process of breaking in a jacket. I suppose if I was trying to replicate an original for costume use, it might be different, but my personal preference is to just wear the damn thing.... Others' opinions do vary. There are plenty of different methods discussed in many threads on the lounge, and it's certainly possible. Making it look just right so that the wear patterns are 'real' is a skill in itself - as is knowing when to stop, rather than overdoing it.

 

[HighandDry]

The other option is to go vintage. My vintage cafe racer (60 yo) is just fantastic in terms of patina and I highly doubt you could re-create it artificially.

Unlike blethook, my mw jerky hide is still shiny and wrinkle free . I much prefer the FQHH leather. For me, it has broken in very nicely and easier than the midweight.

 

[Seb Lucas]

It can be done but it doesn't look 100% real. But most people wouldn't know the difference.

It's done with paint, fine sandpaper, rubbing alcohol and washing. Filmjackets.com has a tutorial on this.

But do you really want to screw up a nice Aero that much? Just knowing it is fake would take the joy out of it for me. The water treatment I understand as it makes the jacket easier to wear. I put mine in the machine with a little soap. It has never hurt a single jacket and I've done several.

 

[beaprepp]

What colour is the MW HH Aero jacket?

it`s black.

@Edward

You understand me wrong.
I hate this fake vintage stuff, but I want a jacket which ages nicley.
I prefer the look of a slow aging FQHH, too.
But the finish of the m/w HH is different to the FQHH. (I don`t know the right english word for that)
It`s fact that the m/w HH don`t ages nicley.
It`s made to look over a very long time almost new.

I just want to get sure, if I a take the m/w, that, the jacket will not look aftet five years like every other ordinray leather jacket.

 

[Kenal0]

it`s black.

@Edward

You understand me wrong.
I hate this fake vintage stuff, but I want a jacket which ages nicley.
I prefer the look of a slow aging FQHH, too.
But the finish of the m/w HH is different to the FQHH. (I don`t know the right english word for that)
It`s fact that the m/w HH don`t ages nicley.
It`s made to look over a very long time almost new.

I just want to get sure, if I a take the m/w, that, the jacket will not look aftet five years like every other ordinray leather jacket.

I am in the process of trying to break in my black mid weight HH Aero Highwayman.
I bought it a few years back and put it in the closet as I like my Heavy brown highwayman so much I never thought about the black too much. I have spent the last 4 weeks wearing the black and it is starting to show some wear but it looks like this will take a long time and I do not think it will ever look as broken in as the brown as I believe the tanning process is different. I am going to stay with it until the weather changes and the A2's come out.
Kenal0

 

[westinghouse]

Sleep with the jacket every night for several weeks.

Spray the jacket with water then let the jacket dry in the sun.

Tumble dry the jacket in the dryer for several hours on a no heat setting with some sneakers wrapped in plastic bags.

 

[Edward]

it`s black.

@Edward

You understand me wrong.
I hate this fake vintage stuff, but I want a jacket which ages nicley.
I prefer the look of a slow aging FQHH, too.
But the finish of the m/w HH is different to the FQHH. (I don`t know the right english word for that)
It`s fact that the m/w HH don`t ages nicley.
It`s made to look over a very long time almost new.

I just want to get sure, if I a take the m/w, that, the jacket will not look aftet five years like every other ordinray leather jacket.

Ah! Gotcha! Probably best to drop Amanda a line at Aero, she'll be able to give you a good idea of how they differ in age, I should think. I'd be interested to know myself, as when eventually I can afford a black Thirties halfbet, I'd be wanting the version that doesn't age so quickly.

 

[beaprepp]

I just want get sure that the m/w hh gets grey with the time.

A Black leather jacket which look after years brand new is not what I am looking for.
I think to get this grey spots the m/w hh will need some extra treatment, because of the spray finish.
What do you think, or is the jacket becoming grey by itself?

 

[John in Covina]

I keep imagining some how winding up getting dragged down a dirt road behind a pickup truck...:eeek:

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Here's what it looks like when a leather jacket is artifically "weathered". Note the wear pattern. This is not the wear pattern that will emerge on a regularly worn/beat up leather jacket. None of the "high wear" areas are really weathered at all - the most significant wear is the the outline of the leather panels forming the inner parts of the pockets. Not in any way attractive in my opinion.

This is LVC, btw. I believe Aero made them.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230597893532&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

 

[blethook]

Some of Aero's MW horsehides are smooth, I believe. The russet & seal brown, for example, come in both smooth & jerky. These smooth hides do not develop much of graining over time (almost like furniture leather) but they will lose their shine over time & become very soft. Maybe the black MW HH you have is the smooth kind?

it`s black.

@Edward

You understand me wrong.
I hate this fake vintage stuff, but I want a jacket which ages nicley.
I prefer the look of a slow aging FQHH, too.
But the finish of the m/w HH is different to the FQHH. (I don`t know the right english word for that)
It`s fact that the m/w HH don`t ages nicley.
It`s made to look over a very long time almost new.

I just want to get sure, if I a take the m/w, that, the jacket will not look aftet five years like every other ordinray leather jacket.

 

[John in Covina]

In my opinion and trying to describe how this all seems to me.

There is a thread that talks about achieving a patina on newer shoes by using different color polishes and cremes mostly making some areas a little darker. While many of these jackets are fairly dark already it seems that for some the main focus is how to make some areas lighter in color. Patina as to color alone doesn't make the jacket look more authentic if the leather itself doesn't have a broken in look, it looks like a new jacket with light areas.

I think that while there are ways to speed up the breaking in process, it all comes down to real wear which comes from really wearing it. What happens when a jacket gets worn regularly and under a lot of different conditions is too complicated and in some ways too subtle to lend it self to many accurate shortcuts.

The soaking and wearing recreates being in rain storm conditions and seems pretty valid as a start because instead of waiting for the storm you make the storm and the whole jacket gets the treatment. Sanding highlights the high spots, the wear is inconsistent with the break-in and wear on the rest of the jacket so it seems to be a bit more unequal. Wear overly hastened in some areas gets too far ahead of the rest of the jacket to look right.

I keep imagining a powered animatronic torso that moves in all the right motions to get the flex points right being put through the accelerated aging car paint tests. Sounds expensive.

 

[Edward]

This is LVC, btw. I believe Aero made them.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230597893532&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

If memory serves, Aero did some years back manufacture a run of jackets that were sold under the LVC label. I recetly saw on on eBay, at quite a good price. It wasn't as badly pre-aged as this, looked fairly like a jacket that had simply been worn a little. What put me off, though, was that the jacket had been purposes made with artificial repair stitching (i.e. the stitching as if to make a repair where there was no tear in the leather). Not to my taste at all. Reminded me of a label I saw on a pair of worn finish 501s years ago, explaining to the buyer that, as the jeans had been artificially aged, they may not last as long as a pair not so finished.

 

[djgo-cat-go]

Here's what it looks like when a leather jacket is artifically "weathered". Note the wear pattern. This is not the wear pattern that will emerge on a regularly worn/beat up leather jacket. None of the "high wear" areas are really weathered at all - the most significant wear is the the outline of the leather panels forming the inner parts of the pockets. Not in any way attractive in my opinion.

This is LVC, btw. I believe Aero made them.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230597893532&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

That´s just plain ugly..