A2 Restoraiton Projece

[senjorlossi]

Hi everyone,

this is a kind of a "project" that I would like to share with you:

A few days ago I came across this - let´s say "used looking" A2 on a classified website. It turned out to be an older Aero Leather A2 model made from goatskin. It is not a remake of a certain contract. A search on the Internet revealed that Aero obviously made a kind of a House Style Model in the past, which was sold for a Budget price. At least in comparison to the todays prices of high class A2 from any producers. The seller told me that he also bought the jacket second-hand, and that the pre-owner had tried to use sandpaper to give the jacket a more vintage look. Well, this is the result...

Anyway, besides the awful look of the leather surface, it still seemed to be a nice jacket, and I decided to go for it and bought it for a very reasonable price. Upon arrival, I found out that it is actually a really good jacket. Apart from the sanding of the leather, it is in a remarkebly good condition. The knits and inner lining are in a great condition and without the typical problems on used A2s with holes on the neck or in the knits. The only real damage is a partially open seam on one of the pockets, which will have to be repaired. You can see that there has been a sqadron patch and a nametag sewn to the jacket, as the stiching holes are still visible on the left front. The best Thing is that, even tough I was a little bit afraid that it would be too big for me, the cut of the jacket comes quite small and slender, and it actually fits me perfectly.

Now, this is my plan for the jacket:

- Cleaning and re-coloring the surface. For this I already ordered a special cleaner and leather paint from Angelus. I was unsure whether paint or dye would be better for this job, but after a bit of research on the net I came to the conclusion that paint would be the best option. This might also wear down over time and create a real vintage look, once the original brown colour starts to get visible. A bit like the "Re-Issue" Model from Eastman.

I will go for black as I think this is the best combinatnaion with the rust knitting. And I acutally thought about a black / rust A2 for me for a long time already.

- Having the pocket repaired by a good taylor or maybe even Aero themselves. In any way by someone who knows how to work with A2s.

- As the holes are there anyway, I plan to add a new nametag and Squadron patch to the jacket. I already have an idea of a personal, completely phantasy patch. I have some old pieces of leather here, so I will try to paint the patch on my own.


So, this is my happy little project for the next days or most probably weeks. I will let you know how the result looks like... Have a nice day everyone!

 

[Peacoat]

It amazes me that someone would actually do that to a jacket.

Are you sure that "painting" this jacket is the best approach? I would think that a re-dye would be the less "intrusive" alternative.

 

[Seb Lucas]

It amazes me that someone would actually do that to a jacket.

Are you sure that "painting" this jacket is the best approach? I would think that a re-dye would be the less "intrusive" alternative.

Yep, sanding looks appallingly fake and ugly. It's done all the time to Indiana Jones jackets on the COW website to mock age Indy jackets. Almost never looks like real wear.

 

[Bennarion]

So, this is my happy little project for the next days or most probably weeks. I will let you know how the result looks like... Have a nice day everyone!

It will be very interesting to see

 

[rocketeer]

I used to die one of my old A2s, I used a touch up you could by at a lot of sole and heels stalls. The leather 'paint' used for touching up scuffs would peel off after a short time with some normal wear, some would say rough but getting under cars and working on engines was what I wore mine for. So I used a mixture of black and dark brown in a sort of 70% brown 30% black ratio.
The big problem was that it stank like creosote so needed to sit in the shed a few weeks. I don't bother with it now though I do have a very early Eastman that needs a dose of something as the original russet is showing through and I always preferred a dark jacket.

 

[Dumpster Diver]

It could be fixed no problem, Just wear it and enjoy.

 

[Seb Lucas]

You could do what they did in World War Two - re-dye the jacket.

Two steps -

1/ Wipe it down with acetone.

2/Using a thin, runny dye, paint it on with a brush - you can tape off the knits with duct tape.

In the war lots of A2 jackets were re-dyed by hand and you can still see brush marks and drips. This was done in a hurry and looks pretty cool. You just need to get the right dye mix in a dark brown. The Steve McQueen A2 is a re-dye.

 

[senjorlossi]

Hi Guys,

sorry for my late reply, but I did not get back to my PC earlier.

I also thoght about wether to dye or paint the jacket. I looked around on the Internet quite a bit and came to the conclusion that dying a large piece of leather seems to be a delicate task. It seems to be quite hard to get an even result, even without the changing surface structure of this special jacket. I also talked to the vendor of the paint. They offer both paint and dye for leather, and I got the advice to use paint for this job. They are specialized in selling this kind of stuff, so I followed his suggestion.

Anyay, this is what I did so far:

I cleaned the jacket twice with a special leather de-glazer. This did not only clean the surface, but also took away quite a bit of the original coloring. Actually I guess it is basically acetone, at least it smells exactly the same. I´ll keep that in mind for my next jacket.

Next I sanded the jacket down very carefully with a fine sanding fleece to make the surface a bit uneven, so the paint will adhere better.

Then I painted the jacket two times with the black leather paint, waiting for a day inbetween to let the first coat dry completely. The first layer was applied with a piece of cloth, for the second one I used a citchen sponge, which does the job a lot faster with the same result. The paint is supposed to be applied in several very thin layers. By doing so it should stay completely flexible and stick reliably to the leather. In fact painting is not even the right word for what I did, it is more like "massaging" the paint into the leather in a circular pattern. The paint is quite opaque, so after two layers I already have a very good black surface, with almost no traces of brown left. This is what it looks like now:

In fact I am already quite happy with the result. There is just a little of the original surface shining through here and there, which already gives the jacket a nice vintage look. Of course the deeper cuts done to the leather still kind of shine through, but you can´t to a lot about that. Now I am thinking whether to put a third layer on the jacket, or to leave it like it is. What I will do in any case is to put a layer of silk finish on as a final protection.

Then I can start to wear the jacket to see if any of the paint is coming off. If it does, I will have to look what do do about it. It might be possible to carefully remove the paint, and then dye the jacket. But I´ll give it a try first.​

 

[Peacoat]

In my opinion it looks a lot better than it did before. Did you find out if it will now develop patina naturally as you are wearing it? If so, you have had a successful project.

 

[senjorlossi]

Hi Peacoat!
Yes, the jacket definately looks better than before, which, to be honest, was not hard to achieve.

My expectation is that the paint will start to wear off in the typical areas like along the seams and so on. If it does, it should result in a nice used look. If it comes off in large Patches, I will have a Problem...

 

[Seb Lucas]

Great result and an interesting project.. What brand of dye was it? It'll look really good with some wear and fading.

 

[willyto]

The end result looks great but I always wonder if that dye will stain clothes or body.

I have vintage jacket that at some point was dyed and it's a mess...staining everything even the hands after having washed it.

 

[Peacoat]

I dyed one of my Johnson Leather Jackets to a rich dark brown and have no problems with it. That was several years ago.

Senjori used a "paint," and not a dye. Not sure what that is, though.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Some dyes and paints run and some don't. It would be good to learn what to look for to avoid the run off issues. Especially when it rains...

 

[senjorlossi]

Hi everyone!
Indeed, paint and dye are two separate things. As I got it, a dye will go inside the leather and colorize the material itself, while paint only adheres on the outside of the leather.

I used this one:

(Not the red one for the jacket, obviously… ;-) )


As mentioned, I applied two very thin layers, which is enough to make the jacket almost completely black. Now I will wait for two or three days, then put the finischer on, and wait another two days to let everything dry completely.

Acutally I don´t think that the paint will create stains or come off from rain once it is completely dry. The only Question is if it really adheres on the parts that are moved and bended a lot, like the ellbow and shoulder areas.

 

[Peacoat]

Some dyes and paints run and some don't. It would be good to learn what to look for to avoid the run off issues. Especially when it rains...

I used Fiebings Leather Dye, available at Amazon (of course). I got mine locally at a Tandy Leather store. I used it on a soft naked cowhide. I doubt it would work on the other finishes/tanning methods, especially chromexcel.

Haven't worn mine in the rain, but I did wipe a small section down with a wet cloth just now. No transfer of dye to the cloth.

 

[senjorlossi]

Since we are talking about colorizing leather:

From which process does the "original" colour of the leather come from? I mean the leather that a product like our jackets are originally made of. Does that come directly from the tanning process, or are the leathers also dyed afterwards before being used?

 

[2jakes]

You could do what they did in World War Two - re-dye the jacket.

Two steps -

1/ Wipe it down with acetone.

2/Using a thin, runny dye, paint it on with a brush - you can tape off the knits with duct tape.

In the war lots of A2 jackets were re-dyed by hand and you can still see brush marks and drips. This was done in a hurry and looks pretty cool. You just need to get the right dye mix in a dark brown. The Steve McQueen A2 is a re-dye.

Meltonian leather spray.
Tape off knits.
First tried on leather I didn't mind.
Results were great.
Patience is key!

 

[Seb Lucas]

Since we are talking about colorizing leather:

From which process does the "original" colour of the leather come from? I mean the leather that a product like our jackets are originally made of. Does that come directly from the tanning process, or are the leathers also dyed afterwards before being used?

They are dyed.

 

[senjorlossi]

Hi everyone!
First of all, sorry for not being around here for a long time, but other duties, nice weather and our vaccations kept me away from the computer in the last weeks.

For everyone interested here is a quick update on my jacket Project:

After painting the jacket, I came to the conclusion that the result was not what I was looking for. The look of the painted jacket was very nice, in fact much better than it appears on the picture in the post further up. But I did not feel happy with the way the leather actually felt like. The coating with the acrylic paint resulted in a kind of "rubber-like" feel of the jacket. Not really great…

So back to square one (actually to square two or even three)… I carefully removed the acrylic paint with a solvent and then used black dye to re-colorize the jacket. I gave it two treatments with a few days inbetween, each one with 2-3 "rounds" of applying the dye on the leather.

The result looks and feels much better now. The typical grain of the goatskin is visible again, and the jacket does not feel like plastic anymore.
Applying the dye was very easy and way less difficult than I feared in the beginning. The outside of the jacket came out quite clean, only on the inside there are a few stains, mostly in around the neck and in the area along the zip. Also there has been some dye going through the holes where the nametag and the patch had been sewn on the jacket. But then again, I don´t really care about it as Long as it is not visible from the outside.

The dye I used was "Jet Black" from Angelus. As mentioned, applying it was very easy. In the end the surface is not really pitch black, but more like a very dark shade of the typical "seal" A-2 tone. With the two layers of dye applied, there is just an idea of the original light brown tone of the jacket shining through, which actually looks quite nice.

The only drawback is that the dye leaves a lot of residues on the surface of the leather that have to be removed before the the jacket can be worn. I thoroughly rubbed down the jacket 4-5 times with clean cloth to remove most of it. I would say that I have gotten rid of most of it now, but I still would not wear the jacket with with a white shirt or other light colored clothing underneath. Maybe I´ll try to give the jacket a rubdown with pure alcohol to remove everything left on the surface.

This is how the jacket looks like now:

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