fishmeok
Well-Known Member
I have had one of John's pre-production Dubows for almost a year, and unfortunately I'm one of those guys who just can't leave well enough alone. I've washed it, shrunk it, shrunk it again, beat the hell out of it, and now after seeing a couple originals I've decided I want it to be a little darker. I don't want it to be as dark as a respray, so I didn't want to hit it with dye, or acrylics like I did to my Avirex (though I'm almost having second thoughts on that- this jacket with the red knits would look amazing done up as a Depot re-spray, and it would wear like an original). I picked up this stuff called "antique finish" from Fiebings that is supposed to adhere to the grooves in the leather and darken the hide. It smells suspiciously like shoe polish, but washes off my hands with water so I'm not entirely sure what is in the stuff. I ended up trying two applications of the goop, using a sheepskin to apply it and really rubbing it in to make sure it darkens the entire jacket, not just get stuck in the cracks. The biggest problem I had was keeping the stuff off the stitches, I was not entirely successful, but I think it turned out well. I like the results, and after a couple weeks the jacket is showing no ill effects and the color looks natural. I still may have to do a Depot Re-Spray at some point though, that would be mghty cool
Cheers
Mark
Original jacket, original color. It's difficult to give an accurate representation with my crappy camera, but you get the idea.
As it looks now- again, the true color is kind of the average of the shots:
Cheers
Mark
Original jacket, original color. It's difficult to give an accurate representation with my crappy camera, but you get the idea.
As it looks now- again, the true color is kind of the average of the shots: