WESTED's lazy bi-swing pleats fixed once and for all. You have to read this!

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Posted by Shawnkara from spider-wb072.proxy.aol.com on October 04, 2000 at 07:09:05:

I tried the elastic support thing and it worked ok, but not quite well enough for my tastes. Besides, I found it confining and uncomfortable. Ok, here is the short story leading to my point..... It came to me just today. We wear uniforms where I work and some of the guys have coveralls. I had not noticed until today, but I'll be damned if the coveralls don't have bi-swing backs! I watched a buddy working, taking mental notes as he moved. The pleats did not lay out flat, fold over, wrinkle or hang unevenly. They stayed straight and crisp and did nothing but perform perfectly, every time. I should mention now that his coveralls are old and tattered and so I decided that it had nothing to do with the cheap, thin polyester that they are made of. At lunch I carefully studied the coveralls. I discovered that the pleats are reinforced with some kind of rigid, yet pliable, material. At THIS point I should remind you that you're hearing from the guy that made the custom 12" Indy that got 2nd place in the contest here at Indyfan. I'm not bragging, but when it comes to design and artistic deduction, I know what I'm doing. Ok, that's the boring part, here we go.........
After work I went out and bought a women's leather belt, 1" wide. I cut off the buckle and the taper at the end then cut the belt equally in half. I reopened the seams of the jacket's lining. The belt was just the width of the pleat. Along the inside of the pleats you'll see that they are faced with a white mesh fabric which is fused to the raw side of the leather. I placed the belt halves under inside the pleates and glued it in place, keeping the edge of the belt even with the edge of the seam. Before gluing I pressed it tight against the inside of the horizontal seam of the shoulders and ran it down to where the straps are attached. Before inserting the belt I rounded the corners on all four ends and ground the leather down with a Dremel tool, gently angling the ends like the blade of a knife. this keeps it from showing through the outside of the jacket when it's stretched. The pleats now hang straight and smooth and just a bit stiff, as they did in the film. And now all they do is function perfectly, every time. Now, to pre-empt a few questions: No, I'm not crazy for gluing it. You're not gluing the supports to the raw leather, but rather to the cloth facing inside the pleates. No, it's not uncomfortable at all. Before committing to the idea I tacked them in there and moved, bent, sat in my car and stood for a bit leaning against a wall. You don't even know they're there until they open up, which feels the way I imagine a good stiff hide bi-swing would feel. This is not hard to do at all, if you know anything about sewing or know someone who does. The belt is the same width as the space you're inserting it in and it pretty much guides itself. The only problem is that I won't be able to close the lining back up quite the way it was, as the lining was constructed prior to being joined with the jacket. Small price to pay for a bi-swing that looks, hangs and works like Indy's. I really hope this helps some of you, it's sure made me appreciate my Wested a lot more.


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