Motorcycles - Page 144

Originally Posted by John Doe 

That is a nice looking jacket however it is not made for use as a real motorcycle jacket. It appears to be lacking in armor, the leather is probably not thick enough nor the stitching strong enough to offer any real protection in a get off. It's called a fashion jacket and a recreation of a motorcycle jacket; it is not a real motorcycle jacket.

Originally Posted by gnatty8 

lol, how do you define a "real" motorcycle jacket?

Originally Posted by gnatty8 

Yeah, these are obviously not "real" motorcycle jackets lacking armor as they do..

Originally Posted by John Doe 

Texastyle, here is a jacket I came across you might like:

http://icon1000.com/collection/icon-1000-chapter-jacket/

Originally Posted by John Doe 

That's a beautiful jacket impolyt!

Originally Posted by impolyt_one 

Well, we don't have the same horsehide anymore in our current stock, and I didn't have a solid connection on getting the D30 armor since they only sold to commercial enterprises (I could do it now but haven't bothered) - I don't know what the pads would cost at that level. They were pretty expensive when we bought them piecemeal somehow, I think $150 or something for just the 5-piece set. The finished jackets would definitely be about $1000 or more if we were using a good hide of the quality I normally use, like 4oz cow or horse with a good natural-looking chrome tan or dye. That's just what it costs to make something like this, it's basically a regular TOJ leather jacket obviously, with beefed up internal seamwork and then the provisions for the armor, plus the cost of the armor. That jacket above with the patches is skimping hard on the leather quality in order to be sold around $600, just looking at it, it's leather I'd never want to wear, be it on a bike or casually.
I have thought about making more bike jackets since the market is wide open for something like this, and I know exactly how I want to make them (maybe 4 or 5 designs) - but I've been busy doing other stuff, needless to say. I might develop the idea later since that one above is a first-time rough draft essentially, and I need to work on my material procurement to do something like this. If someone were to push me along or want to partner up with me to be able to make more, that might be possible too. I am not a rider, so I am not in the community, so to speak. It's just that I've come to this point with making leather jackets the way I wanted them, and this happened to be a logical offshoot when my friend asked me to make a jacket with pads that would match his vintage bike aesthetic (he wears a Ruby helmet, goggles, and some Buzz Rickson's gloves, with brown Moto's boots from Japan) - I knew exactly how I wanted it to be right when he mentioned it to me.