Fly4v
Sr Member
Re: "Captain America, how exciting!" TWS concept and TFA
Jwave, that is a great looking jacket. If you don't mind where did you get it?
If the desire is to look exactly like the photo.
For the rips, I'd print the photo blown up to the same size as your jacket and transfer the cuts with a chalk pencil. Use an sharp exacto knife to cut the shape of the openings and fray the clean cut edges with a file or sandpaper.
For the burns and stains, you can use layers of slightly darker leather dye, shoe polish, or garment water proofing spray unevenly applied to the jacket. What you do needs to remain flexible so I'd rub in saddle soap or a good leather conditioner.
The elbows and high points of the folds will wear lighter than the rest of the jacket just from use. To speed up the process, wear the jacket for a couple of nights for the folds to develop and then buff the areas with saddle soap and a cloth. The areas should lighten up a little.
For the damaged zipper, cut it with a grinding disk, do the rest with the exacto knife, and hand stitch the ends of the vertical seams so they don't open up more than you want.
Additional weathering/wear can be done by tossing on the ground, rubbing it against concrete, or using a tumble dryer on no heat with gravel and sand. These depend on how thick the leather is, if you don't mind tearing up your dryer, and doing this before you do any cutting.
OR to save the jacket for street wear:
Try some leftover fabric from your USO shirt and stick it to the jacket with 3m adhesive spray.
Just spray the back side of the fabric, not the jacket, wait for the glue to dry and stick them on.
As long as it doesn't get wet should they stay attached.
I'd test it inside the pocket flap to see if the dried glue reacts with the leather and if that is good, only have the patches on when in character.
Hope this helps and please share the results.
Edit: Just noticed this was your first post. Welcome aboard. Thanks for letting me be the first.
Jwave, that is a great looking jacket. If you don't mind where did you get it?
If the desire is to look exactly like the photo.
For the rips, I'd print the photo blown up to the same size as your jacket and transfer the cuts with a chalk pencil. Use an sharp exacto knife to cut the shape of the openings and fray the clean cut edges with a file or sandpaper.
For the burns and stains, you can use layers of slightly darker leather dye, shoe polish, or garment water proofing spray unevenly applied to the jacket. What you do needs to remain flexible so I'd rub in saddle soap or a good leather conditioner.
The elbows and high points of the folds will wear lighter than the rest of the jacket just from use. To speed up the process, wear the jacket for a couple of nights for the folds to develop and then buff the areas with saddle soap and a cloth. The areas should lighten up a little.
For the damaged zipper, cut it with a grinding disk, do the rest with the exacto knife, and hand stitch the ends of the vertical seams so they don't open up more than you want.
Additional weathering/wear can be done by tossing on the ground, rubbing it against concrete, or using a tumble dryer on no heat with gravel and sand. These depend on how thick the leather is, if you don't mind tearing up your dryer, and doing this before you do any cutting.
OR to save the jacket for street wear:
Try some leftover fabric from your USO shirt and stick it to the jacket with 3m adhesive spray.
Just spray the back side of the fabric, not the jacket, wait for the glue to dry and stick them on.
As long as it doesn't get wet should they stay attached.
I'd test it inside the pocket flap to see if the dried glue reacts with the leather and if that is good, only have the patches on when in character.
Hope this helps and please share the results.
Edit: Just noticed this was your first post. Welcome aboard. Thanks for letting me be the first.
