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:becky:
I have a feeling this color fade is worse on the black leather CXL. The brown leather probably masks the color fade and blends in...
On my black CXL FQHH jacket, there are already faded areas around the shoulders and underarms... and the most abuse it has seen is basically getting in and out of my car a half-dozen times, lol. But again-- it's annoying how an older CXL black leather sample I have is much more fade resistant. I've put it through a lot of extreme twisting/scratching and it still looks great.
I don't mind color loss/aging in a few years, after all, this jacket is supposed to last a looong time. But if this much color loss happens after a few months, how will it look in a few years??? Yikes.
Has Horween changed their dye process recently?
I discovered that drum dyeing is a more expensive process as it takes much longer this way to allow the dyes to soak right through the leather and the drums used cost a lot of money. So to me it seems that the hand dyeing Horweens use is a cost cutting method and not as good as drum dyed. Drum dyed leather is more colorfast and as the dye cannot wear through.
So get on the phone and quickly cancel your Alexander order. Ring up Lost Worlds for their indestructible dyed through black hide that shows no wear. Stu will be happy..and seems like you would be too.
HD
I was sorta under the impression that they dyed this way as it's more vintage accurate, and will age the same way vintage jackets have. No?
I want 10 minutes of my life back.
I just gnawed off the finish on my Shinki cuffs.
I thought so too but the answer is no. It's to save time and money. Proper way would be to drum dye in black for a finished black end product for black jackets.
They make most leathers with brown base because the natural color of leather is brown.
(brown is also the most popular color for top coating).
This way they can serve requests for a variety of shades of brown.
They take the already retanned brown hides which they keep in stock and finish them with whatever color (shade of brown) the customer wants.
While that's OK if the customer wants a brown color leather, it's not so good if the customer wants black, red, yellow, green etc.
These colors should be drum dyed the same color as the top coating.
See here the whole process and look at the photo's.
http://horween.com/101/chromexcel-2/
You aiming for that mythical Shinki 'tea colour' finish, Scott? Actually, now there's a hide that doesn't change colour easily. Lots of graining and marbling, but no lightening or change.
andyfalzon from Bill Kelso shared this link http://www.saddlebackleather.com/Leather-101 which I think will answer some of your questions. From your description I would think the leather is drum dyed in brown and then top coated with black. This might result in a different look than the one you are after, but it is not a quality issue.