tfar

MikeS, what's the thickness on that leather? Looks good.

Till

Well, the selfedge site pretty much clearly says how much they will soak with a hot soak ~40 minutes. Even though the body definitely has some give, you may just want to wear them through the soak if you want to keep the fit as close to the pre-soak fit as possible. That will ensure that they shrink to fit the proportions of your body and that they do not shrink more than you like in certain areas. Its worked well for me with other jeans.

Good idea. I also find that this works. It is particularly important on the first soak. You can also wash/soak them air dry a good bit and wear them when they are only damp. That will have the same effect if sitting around in super heavy wet jeans in the winter is not your idea of fun. Mind you, they will continue to shrink a bit over the subsequent 2-3 soaks. Ice cold water is not needed. A cold soak will shrink the jeans minimally and almost settle the fiber. I said almost! They will also stretch back. I think the 634SR will stretch back about 1-1.5 inches in the waist.

Also keep in mind that Haraki-san recommends against wearing them for as long as possible without soaking. He recommends to soak them when you first get them. The reason is to make the really stiff material soften up a bit because otherwise the friction of the material will have to much abrasion on the threads and you will shorten the lifespan of your jeans. This is what explains the bad shape of JackCranks 9634 jeans after only four months.

The soak will not change the color of the jeans. The surplus die that you do lose will be gone anyway on your first wash. So soak them a couple of times, make sure the jeans are the right fit. Then wear for as long as you like or can stand the smell, then wash.

If you want to accelerate the abrasion, you can spot starch certain areas. But overall the cloth needs to be softened first or you risk seam blowouts.

i don't know if this has been addressed but how does the denim on the 634SRs gain the extra 1.5-2 oz? i have a pair and i've been wondering...

also does the denim on the sexih07 "gain weight" as well?

No idea for the 07. The 634SR will gain weight in water so to say. Apparently this is a permanent gain. No water no gain.

Till

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=PqkHeJJ

IRONHEART 634SR patch. Good as new: two or three soaks and one warm wash by hand. Didn't do anything to it yet. May use Grison neutral shoe cream since I don't have the Obenauf LP.

Till

Very nice! Beautiful color. Classic buckle. I also wear either a very light belt (see above) or something dark like this, depending on the shoes.

Till

I can't really agree with this statement, but the leather does look nice. The hardware looks flimsy compared to the belt.

Have you seen Japanese leathercraft finishing techniques firsthand? It's definitely amongst the world's best.

I have seen an FH belt on a friend. Very nice but still this is superior. Have you seen the Manufactum belt in person? And have you surfed the Kreis website a little bit to see his "fine" belts? He also makes custom belts and cordovan (Horween) belts. Wonderful stuff. The finish on those is clearly better than on his own rough Manufactum belt and also clearly better than on the Japanese belts I've seen in person and in pictures. Otherwise, I don't dispute that the Japanese may have excellent craftsmen in just about any artisanal field including leather, of course. Just that this belt at $150 literally beats the pants off the competition. Even at the same price it would win unless you like a huge buckle.

The picture is a bit deceiving. In reality the proportion looks just fine. Naturally, it also depends a bit on the size of the wearer. I am 180cm, 73kg and have a 33 waist. Looks alright on me. If the wearer is a 6'4" 250lbs guy, yes he'd be better served by a bigger buckle.

However, there is one criticism that I have, too. The stitching on my particular belt where the buckle is held could be tighter. It is already double stitched with really thick yarn and perhaps they've done it on purpose to give the buckle enough room to move. But it looks a bit off when you look at it from above. I have not checked out the other belts whether they had that "problem", too. I also don't care for the Zierstrich (the decorative line that's imprinted all along the belt) so much but that's a matter of taste, I guess.

I really do like the belt and buckle that Mr. Black posted a lot!

Till

Informative post, great belt tfar!

Thanks! I hope it helps those that are looking for a belt decide. Pricewise it is in its own niche. It will be more than the Corter, Tanner and unlucky belts which are frankly also very nice and it will be less (but better in my eyes) than the Japanese belts.

that belt is for the guy that like a triple leather sole on their boots...

the buckle looks tiny next to the leather.... I've never seen a belt for a man that thick...

Is it difficult to sit as in do you feel it on your lumbar?

I have no boots with triple leather sole but would consider that. I have some shoes with a double leather sole and that's already hefty but very comfortable against the expectation. The shoes I have look somewhat like this

http://www.manufactum.de/Produkt/194025/1440178/DinkelackerBudapesterbraun.html

Mine are 23 years old and still look great and I still wear them.

The buckle is almost square at 56x57mm. Each metal "bar" is about 7mm thick. So this is not puny buckle by any means. It has a nice weight to it, too. I do not feel the belt at all in the lumbar region. When it was new I felt it a bit on my hip bones and in the love handles. Working on the lover handles.

I could imagine however, that the belt might be able to provide lumbar support if needed if you cinched it up tightly.

It is also a bit wider than the usual 1.5 inch belts. I just measured and it's exactly a 4cm strip.

Till

Another link with more instructions and choice of different indigo forms:

http://www.aurorasilk.com/natural_dyes/dyes/dye_indigo.html

Till

While I totally see the point of an entire from scratch project and find it super entertaining, if I were to invest that much time for an uncertain outcome, as we have seen with our English friend, I'd rather buy some natural indigo extract directly and give it a swing first to see how it works and how it looks.

Here is just one source:

http://www.paradisefibers.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=1007

Till

I was browsing this page for something completely different, when suddenly I see this:

1 cm thick (!!!), 4 cm wide. I would totally like to try, if I was sure I had jeans with large enough belt loops...

The 1cm thick Manufactum ox-leather belt has been posted a couple of times but most venerable members were too light-footed to try one. Well, I did. I can tell you that this thing positively puts all of the other belts in this thread to shame and that compared to those it could be sold for $400, if there was a price continuum.

Here are the links to the German and English Manufactum site and to the actual maker of the belt, Bernd Kreis from Offenbach, Germany:

http://www.manufactum.at/Produkt/191427/1420431/GuertelOchsenleder.html

http://www.manufactum.co.uk/Produkt/193750/1442049/OxLeatherBelt.html

http://www.kreis-ledermanufaktur.de/06_guertel.htm

For the convenience of those who don’t read German I will translate some of the stuff that the English website doesn’t mention and stuff from the mfr website.

The belt is almost 10mm thick. It is a single layer, not two glued together. It is natural leather but has a light wax coating. The edges are finished as per what you can read on the UK site. The belt buckle is solid brass, sand cast (artisanal technique) and silver-plated (silver the metal, not silver color). It is made in Italy and actually quite handsome. The line that you see along the edge is called “Zierstrich†which is best translated as decorative stripe. It is not a sewing line and doesn’t come from a machine treatment or from the cutting process. The line is put there as a design feature. The holes are very precisely cut and oval in shape which allows the belt to lay flatter; kind of important with such a thick piece. The inside looks unfinished to me. It will take the indigo from your jeans. I wear it with a pair of Ironheart 634SR, the 23oz model. You can see more pictures of it on the Kreis website. Strangely, the close-up he has on his site is not representative of the beautiful and practically flawless grain of this belt leather made from the rear back (croupon) of an ox. I saw probably 12 of them at the Manufactum store in Berlin and they were all good. Even the color variation was minimal, given that this leather is tanned (or it wouldn’t be leather) but not dyed.

The leather comes from Great Britain, the belt is handmade in Germany and the buckle handmade in Italy. If you look at his site, you will see that even the quality of craftsmanship and finish is simply superior (sorry!) to that of the higher priced fashion-marketed Japanese products.

Now you will want to know how does it wear. Well, in the beginning it was really super stiff but it loosened up quickly and according to mfr info will even stretch over time despite its girth. After two weeks of wearing it, buckling the belt is effortless and the leather is soft and flexible. Beware though, when you slap your hand with it, it will hurt because the leather is so heavy. The first few days the thickness and rigidity of the leather was a bit uncomfortable just like the 634SR aren’t exactly comfy in the beginning but now I don’t even notice it anymore.

Why do I like it? Aparts from the objective reasons outlined above, I like exclusivity as much as the next guy on superfuture and this thing seems to be the thickest jeans style belt on the planet until somebody makes a whale leather model. Even elephant skin is not this thick. On top of it, it is at least as rare as the Japanese stuff and better made at a lower price. What’s not to like? It even has a rather long tradition as Offenbach has historically been a center for leather in Germany and this business has been in the hands of one family of leather makers since 1963. Jeez, I sound like a TV spot. Anyway, nothing to do with either company, I just like their products.