Re: Excellent news on the follow ups......and another question for Gringo.

Posted by Gringo from h000094b5bd1e.ne.mediaone.net on September 16, 2000 at 00:41:19:

In Reply to: Re: Excellent news on the follow ups......and another question for Gringo. posted by Fedora on September 16, 2000 at 00:30:59:

: : By chance, is this one of the A-2's they had listed as being "too glossy". I have been contemplating getting another A-2, as I F'd up my LL Bean goatskin flight jacket pretty bad in a predistressing and wrinkle removal attempt (I'm too embarrassed to admit what I did, so please don't ask, but it didn't involve acetone). I saw those Flight Suits Horsehide A-2's listed for $299 clearance and was very tempted. What size did you get, and the clearance inventory number if you remember, it might still be listed.

:
: Hey, I bought a LL Bean Flying Tigers jacket a few years ago in the predistressed goatskin, and it has turned out to be a very good jacket. I think I will wait around until Flight Suits offers the Indy jacket in the goatskin. By their admission the goatskin and horse hide seems to be the toughest leathers when compared with the others. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the loud smell of the Wested lambskin is due, not to an inferior tanning process, but rather the chromium tanning method used in many leathers. The vegetable tanning method involves the use of tannic acid, derived from various plants, and takes much longer to produce, while the mineral method, in this case chromium, is typically a one day process. The only other process that is used is the old primitive method of using brains or oils like fish oils to preserve the leather, and in the indian method, smoking the hide in conjunction with the brain treatment. One thing that I have learned over the years is that if you are seeking accurate information from a business that deals in a particular product, you may or may not get the facts. Chalk this down to simple stupidity, or even worse, a hidden agenda. I ran into this while researching whether or not beaver felt, was the ultimate felt to have a hat made from. Hatters sometimes won't give you straight answers only because they don't offer what you may want. I had always known that beaver was very expensive, and was used in very high end cowboy hats, but then this deal about rabbit felt came up as being the toughest and long lasting. This simply isn't true. The reason that beaver became so popular a couple hundred ago, was because of its superior quality, and resistance to shrinking, not to mention it made a tighter felt using the primitive methods they were stuck with. Not that I want a beaver fedora, the rabbit suits me just fine, but the facts need to be known. When I first heard of this inferior lambskin that Wested uses, and that the long lasting smell was the indicator, I had a hard time accepting it. The main reason was because back in 1976, I was into backpacking in a really big way, and I bought alot of equipment, all of it from shops that specialized in top of the line stuff, as if your life depended on it. Which of course it did in some instances. I used a character by the name of Colin Fletcher, who wrote "The Thousand Mile Summer" and who had field tested many products to use on his 1000 mile walk, much of it in wilderness areas, and very isolated, using caches to resupply. Anyway,he was really sold on this set of hiking boots, made by an Italian company called Pivetta. They were basicaly hand made out of really thick full grain leather, and cost an arm and a leg back then. When I recieved them, they smelled to high heaven, like the Wested, and continued to do so for a very long time even after some pretty rough trips. I had these boots resoled with vibram lug soles 5 or 6 times, and the uppers never wore out! I treated them with nothing but Sno-seal.I would still have these boots, 25 years later, if my wife had not thrown them out because she thought them too old to keep! I am still pissed off about this, and it's been a few years! Now these boots are no longer made, and impossible to find. If the loud smell indicates inferior tanning processes, then how do you explain this personal experience. I honestly think the lingering smell comes from the process used, chromium versus vegetable. I think this is something that requires further research, leaving the retailors,and wholesalers out of it. These guys don't mind telling a tall tale when it involves money. Regards, Fedora

Fedora, I have to say, just because it smells great, maybe it is only fresh, not right!

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: : : By chance, is this one of the A-2's they had listed as being "too glossy".  I have been contemplating getting another A-2, as I F'd up my LL Bean goatskin flight jacket pretty bad in a predistressing and wrinkle removal attempt (I'm too embarrassed to admit what I did, so please don't ask, but it didn't involve acetone).  I saw those Flight Suits Horsehide A-2's listed for $299 clearance and was very tempted. What size did you get, and the clearance inventory number if you remember, it might still be listed.

: 
: : 
: :     Hey, I bought a LL Bean Flying Tigers jacket a few years ago in the predistressed goatskin, and it has turned out to be a very good jacket. I think I will wait around until Flight Suits offers the Indy jacket in the goatskin. By their admission the goatskin and horse hide seems to be the toughest leathers when compared with the others. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the loud smell of the Wested lambskin is due, not to an inferior tanning process, but rather the chromium tanning method used in many leathers. The vegetable tanning method involves the use of tannic acid, derived from various plants, and takes much longer to produce, while the mineral method, in this case chromium, is typically a one day process. The only other process that is used is the old primitive method of using brains or oils like fish oils to preserve the leather, and in the indian method, smoking the hide in conjunction with the brain treatment. One thing that I have learned over the years is that if you are seeking accurate information from a business that deals in a particular product, you may or may not get the facts. Chalk this down to simple stupidity, or even worse, a hidden agenda. I ran into this while researching whether or not beaver felt, was the ultimate felt to have a hat made from. Hatters sometimes won't give you straight answers only because they don't offer what you may want. I had always known that beaver was very expensive, and was used in very high end cowboy hats, but then this deal about rabbit felt came up as being the toughest and long lasting. This simply isn't true. The reason that beaver became so popular a couple hundred ago, was because of its superior quality, and resistance to shrinking, not to mention it made a tighter felt using the primitive methods they were stuck with. Not that I want a beaver fedora, the rabbit suits me just fine, but the facts need to be known. When I first heard of this inferior lambskin that Wested uses, and that the long lasting smell was the indicator, I had a hard time accepting it. The main reason was because back in 1976, I was into backpacking in a really big way, and I bought alot of equipment, all of it from shops that specialized in top of the line stuff, as if your life depended on it. Which of course it did in some instances. I used a character by the name of Colin Fletcher, who wrote "The Thousand Mile Summer" and who had field tested many products to use on his 1000 mile walk, much of it in wilderness areas, and very isolated, using caches to resupply. Anyway,he was really sold on this set of hiking boots, made by an Italian company called Pivetta. They were basicaly hand made out of really thick full grain leather, and cost an arm and a leg back then. When I recieved them, they smelled to high heaven, like the Wested, and continued to do so for a very long time even after some pretty rough trips. I had these boots resoled with vibram lug soles 5 or 6 times, and the uppers never wore out! I treated them with nothing but Sno-seal.I would still have these boots, 25 years later, if my wife had not thrown them out because she thought them too old to keep! I am still pissed off about this, and it's been a few years! Now these boots are no longer made, and impossible to find. If the loud smell indicates inferior tanning processes, then how do you explain this personal experience. I honestly think the lingering smell comes from the process used, chromium versus vegetable. I think this is something that requires further research, leaving the retailors,and wholesalers out of it. These guys don't mind telling a tall tale when it involves money. Regards, Fedora

: Fedora, I have to say, just because it smells great, maybe it is only fresh, not right!

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