Removing thinsulate from leather jacket

[saintkobe]

Hey, I could possibly buy a LL bean a2 leather jacket, but it comes with thinsulate. I live in southern california, and was thinking that the thinsulate might make it too hot for regular wear. How difficult is it to remove thinsulate from a leather jacket? I was considering buying it and going to a tailor to remove the thinsulate because I haven't been able to find one in my size in decent condition without thinsulate.

 

[Monitor]

You don't need a tailor for that as relatively, it is a very simple procedure.

Depends on how the jacket is sewn of course, but if the three Thinsulate panels aren't separated, a single lining access point should be enough for you to reach inside the guts of the jacket.
Flip the jacket inside-out and examine the sleeves. You will notice that the lining on either one or both sleeves have a part that's stitched differently than the rest - That's the access point, intended to be easily unstitched and more importantly, re-stitched.
Once inside, yanking out the foam is all that's left for you to do.

 

[saintkobe]

You don't need a tailor for that as relatively, it is a very simple procedure.

Depends on how the jacket is sewn of course, but if the three Thinsulate panels aren't separated, a single lining access point should be enough for you to reach inside the guts of the jacket.
Flip the jacket inside-out and examine the sleeves. You will notice that the lining on either one or both sleeves have a part that's stitched differently than the rest - That's the access point, intended to be easily unstitched and more importantly, re-stitched.
Once inside, yanking out the foam is all that's left for you to do.

It is difficult to remove the foam that's further in? And if the stitching isn't different than I'm guessing it would be difficult to remove? These vintage ll bean jackets are old and around the time that thinsulate was coming into use, so it might have been stitched in a less adjustable way.

 

[Monitor]

It is difficult to remove the foam that's further in? And if the stitching isn't different than I'm guessing it would be difficult to remove?

It's fussy more than difficult but depending on the type of foam, it should hold together enough that you should be able to pull it out in chunks. It's either like cotton balls or a sheet of hairy foam in which case it is even easier to remove.

These vintage ll bean jackets are old and around the time that thinsulate was coming into use, so it might have been stitched in a less adjustable way.

The lining access point is nearly as old as tailoring and equally applicable, irrelevant of how old the jacket is or what it is lined with. Long story short, your jacket will have it.

Although... Thinking about it, while it's all so simple to me now, back when I was figuring it out, I would've been mortified to do something like that, too so if you're not comfortable gutting the jacket yourself, perhaps it'd be best to go with a tailor.

What I fear, though, is that most tailors will insist on replacing the lining altogether because they know they can't charge you much for something as simple as just pulling out the foam (the way I described), even though the whole procedure will eat up an hour or two of their time.

 

[Edward]

Should be doable, you can probably do it yourself, and you'll likely want to have the lining replaced. If it's not a jacket you already have, you might well find it ends up costing more to have the relining done than to buy another used jacket that's got the lining you want already.