Tag: leather jacket

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Biker Conchos for leather jackets, Items

silver biker conchos for leather jacket gold concho for leather saddle bagconcho for leather backpack

Hey everyone, what’s going on? Today I thought I’d write a quick post about biker conchos for your leather jacket and other leather items. Now just what is a concho, and what does it do? A concho is just for decoration, nothing more. It serves no real purpose other than looking good. Silver conchos are very popular.

concho for leather backpackA concho for leather does not act as a button, or snap, or any other practical thing. It’s just for making your leather jacket or item look better. It does a pretty good job of it too, as you see almost all leather saddle bags, tool bags and leather jackets with conchos. You can easily add conchos anywhere you want on your leather. The really cheap ones are just stamped tin or thin metal, glued or threaded on.

The good ones are made of brass, stainless steel, nickel plated and copper. They are thick and have some wight to them. The cheap ones are light and can rust and bend. A good leather biker conchos attaches by a screw backing, or it is made with slots to be tied to the leather with leather braid, giving it an even better look. Some can be made to be the button heads of snaps too.

concho for leather bagsThis is a concho made to be tied to the leather with leather braiding. Once the leather braid is threaded through normally you leave a length of it so that once it’s tied you have two lengths of leather hanging down from it for a nice look. Leather conchos can be put anywhere you want them. On a leather jacket normally the top center of the back is a popular spot for a concho. Sometimes it’s put in the center of a leather braid pattern. Continue reading Biker Conchos for leather jackets, Items

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Leather hardware for leather jackets

Leather hardware for leather jackets

How’s everyone doing today, out riding the Harley? I’m stuck in here, writing this post, lol. Well, now that I’ve explained how to get the best leather for a leather jacket, I’ll explain a bit about all the leather hardware that goes into a leather jacket. Hardware is anything that is sewn, stamped, snapped, crimped or otherwise attached to a leather jacket, or other leather product.

It can be the zipper, conchos, button snaps, studs, buckles, anything. There are special leather tools made to work this stuff into the leather. Anything that is just forced through the leather makes it weak and likely to tear. Leather tools cut the small holes and so on needed to attach the hardware.

Now, the last thing you want is to have your hardware rust! Not only will that render the hardware useless, it will destroy the leather around it. Real cheap leather is sometimes made with hardware that rust, I call it rustware. Also the thickness of the hardware determines how good it is. A thin cheap snap will pull out or stop snapping together. Continue reading Leather hardware for leather jackets

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Care & cleaning your leather jacket

care and cleaning your leather jacket

So you’ve got your brand new leather jacket, great. Now you might be wondering what you need to do to it. Should you waterproof it? Put some kind of treatment on it, what? A leather jacket is not hard to maintain, but it does require a little more upkeep than a nylon jacket that you never do anything to.

There is a lot of products on the market for leather, some good and some crap. So I’ll tell you the steps you should take for protecting your leather jacket, conditioning your leather jacket and cleaning your leather jacket. The very first thing you should do to your new leather jacket or leather item is to apply a protector to it. Continue reading Care & cleaning your leather jacket

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Naked leather and aniline

how to color leather


Well in this post I’m going to tell about the last step leather takes. First we picked what animal we want the leather from. Then we picked how we want the leather split and how much if any we want the leather smoothed. Now we need to color and treat the leather.

Just like in the first steps different treatments can be good or bad. I’ve seen some really bad leather jackets where the first time it got rained on all the brown color washed out like water paint! The treatment and tanning process is actually a lengthy process. I’m not going to get into all the steps, only the basic ones you should know.

How a hide is colored and treated will determent how good the coloring holds up, and what the leather is called. You want to know what the difference is between a naked leather jacket and a vegetable dye leather jacket. There are lots of sales pitch terms also, like “super dyed”, “fully treated” and so on. Let’s take a look at the common types. Continue reading Naked leather and aniline

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How leather is made

leather hides


Hi everyone. Well in my last post I told about what different animals leather comes from. So let’s say from that you have decided you want a cowhide leather jacket. Great, good choice. Are you going to get one that is top grain, top grade, split leather, naked leather, aniline or patchwork?

Oh no, not more confusing stuff! Yes, leather can be tricky like I’ve said. Now you can see just how little people understand when they go out and get that “top grade leather jacket”. But it’s not that hard once it’s been explained, and I’ll do that right now for you.

As you know leather is just the hide, the skin of the animal. Different areas of the animal has stronger or thicker hide than others. Take a look at that picture at the top. That shows you the basic sections they use for making a leather product. The sides are the most thickest and strongest and more uniform in texture. Continue reading How leather is made