DIY/professional washing and hand aging your jeans

[Charlie Delta]

Has been discussed before so will link to older threads...

http://www.superfuture.com/supertalk/showthread.php?t=23385

http://www.superfuture.com/supertalk/showthread.php?t=7661

http://www.superfuture.com/supertalk/showthread.php?t=2624

[washboy87]

Hey you guys wanted me to show the wash process.... so here we go!!!!

Step 1. Raw or rigid jean. 1947 Levis LVC 501 i thought that was fitting for the LVC thread.

Step 2. Resin. On a raw garment resin serves a few purposes. It stiffens the fabric to help create 3D whiskers. It helps retain the overall shade, while simultaniously making the wear process a little quicker. A raw jean that has been resined will wear faster than the same jean without. Resin also helps to keep them from shrinking. These jeans in perticular has no sanforization, which as you know means theyll shrink in any liquid....

Step 3. Whiskers. Here we place the jeans on a machine where we can replicate whiskers by hand. I cannot show the machine, but we make the whiskers and the machine helps to cure the resin. This can also be done with water and without resin, so that we can later bleach down the garment if neccessary. Bleach and resin dont work together too well.

[washboy87]

Step 4. Sanding. We then sand the whiskers. In this perticular process were making something presonal, so we want it to look nice. We will be hand sanding a few times over to really bring out the contrast of the denim.

First Hand Sand

Step 5. Ozone. This is something we would usually save until the end, but in cases where we would like a ton of contrast we repeat steps 4 and 5 a couple of times before moving on. After sanding we put the pants into an ozone generator. Ozone is used as a cleaner and a way to brighten up the garment, it has been compared to a dry bleach.

Second Hand Sand

[washboy87]

I will continue with the rest tommorow as there is only so much time in a day. But here are some examples of other levis we have done in the past.

Regular STF 501... You all know what it is....

1947 LVC 501

Keep you posted

[58panheadfan]

@washboy 87

Very interesting post... one of best I have seen in a long time... (against all this sizing shit with absurd questions should i size done 1 or 2 or should size up 4 or 5...) maybe not in proper thread but pls keep us informed... if someone isn't interested in how does an aging process work, easy ignore these posts... Go on washboy87!

[markus]

Very nice work washboy. Looks very authentic. Please let us see more pics.

[greasypeanut]

i personally dont care if its sanded or not as long as it looks good and natural but the problem i think is that it doesnt look as natural as u think. but it seems like ur not done with that pair of 47s right? good luck.

[tvshooter]

just curious washboy. . .do you wear these jeans or do you and your peeps (i'm guessing since you say "we") sell these? if so, who BUYS them? best of luck in here. . .

[washboy87]

Here's the 3 hand sanding...

Step 6. Spray or brush pottasium. Pottasium helps make the whiskers white instead of that sanded blue and also helps to brighten things up. Got a little carried away here and neutrilized the pottasium without taking pictures but will show you after...

[bocaburgler]

seriously, being a denim snob is one of the lamest possible things to be a snob over. The neg reppers just look petty and pathetic.

[Our_Benefactors]

These pairs look awful.

[washboy87]

I will keep going and you guys will see that this ends up looking very very natural. As for who wears them, this pair will be for me, but when not making personal items, i am working for a major denim label.

[B-Dawg]

seriously, being a denim snob is one of the lamest possible things to be a snob over. The neg reppers just look petty and pathetic.

**Neg'd.**

[cottoncraft]

sandpapering is just fake. sorry.

[markus]

These 47 look nearly identical to my two year old ones. And of course they are fake, but the job he did is perfect. Look at all those LVC limited editions - they are fake too but hard to get because many people buy them. I have so many jeans that I cannot give them all the wear they need to look like this 47. Therefore I bought a 33 "Road Rush" Ltd. Editon. I like the look, but the quality is poor. i lost two rivets and the quality of the denim is very different. In washboys case he uses the good quality and makes them look very good. I think there are enough people that will by such a nice denim. I would give him pos. rep but I am not able to. Cannot understand this.

[thatslapz]

I'm curious about the environmental effects of this process. I know on an industrial scale, the washing process produces a lot of negative by-products and puts the workers in danger as many workers in less developed nations do not have the proper protection.

Can you provide us some insight on the chemicals/machines/processes you use? And honestly, outside of sufu, people eat this type of shit up, so to answer whoever asked, the typical consumer would probably buy this.

[spacemanvt]

this is cool

thanks for showing the process at least. dunno why the denim gaylords are getting there tighty whities in a bunch.

[morse9443]

Everyone here is such a denim snob, when most of you have absolutley no idea about anything. Most of you have your head so far up your asses, youl never be able to see the "natural" wear you guys are so proud of!!!! I guarentee you'll never see a wash replicated like the one I am posting, so hold on tight and shut you mouth

You make little/no sense. At least get a decent camera to post your pics - they look terrible.

[Dioxic]

I think its good hes giving us insight into the process, I find it interesting. Yeah I don't think anybody should wear these and that he should just wear them down himself but so what. You guys need to chill out, theres no reason to neg rep the hell out of him.

[morse9443]

Everyone here is such a denim snob, when most of you have absolutley no idea about anything. Most of you have your head so far up your asses, youl never be able to see the "natural" wear you guys are so proud of!!!! I guarentee you'll never see a wash replicated like the one I am posting, so hold on tight and shut you mouth

^^This is why he's getting negged bro - for talking shit.

[Rivet Head]

Hmmm, what happended to just wearing them and enjoying them? Is this to serve the inadequate feelings a new jean wearer has? We all wear new, lightly used to heavily used denim....don't see much point in buying broken in jeans.

[DenimDave]

I happen to think they are extremely artistic. Anyone who thinks this is not art should keep there mouths shut.

[Rivet Head]

DenimDave - I would have to say this is more of the "science" of breaking in a pear of jeans. The "art" comes via the natural wear of the denim over a period of time.

[DenimDave]

Science is numbers! Creating a close to authentic looking jean is art. Wearing in jeans is just being lazy.

[cure]

Science is numbers! Creating a close to authentic looking jean is art. Wearing in jeans is just being lazy.

lol u srs?

[panthermodern]

This shit is so lame. There are spots in Japan where they actually do really good artificial wear on raw denim. While I wouldn't do it, the stuff they produce is much better looking than the garbage posted in this thread.

I can't even begin to understand how DenimDave thinks that wearing in raw denim is lazier than paying some hack to sandpaper it.

Negs all around for these tards

[cure]

i wouldn't pay $200+ for jeans just so i can sand them. i love mine raw, 3 months down the line, 6 months, 8 months, and so on. we're not snobs, we just enjoy denim and the aging process, not quick results.

what did you expect when you were posting this anyway? People to high-five you? You're at best affirming raw denim as a trend just like the others who want quick fades for internet glory.

[DenimDave]

Problem with you folks is you will not except anything so nice made in the US. You also call the Japanese artists "hacks"? I am inspired by my naturally worn in jeans that take no less than putting them on in the morning.

[rnrswitch]

This thread is at least interesting. While I am never, and I will repeat, Never, going to wear predistressed jeans. I do like the information on the process. It would be interesting to see if we can be faked. Looking at the wash of the 47s in this thread I can see that they will look "good" but they won't look authentic. It will help us to understand why we like to wear our jeans and not buy them predistressed. This is like Kasparov Vs. Big blue, but hopefully this time the computer can't beat us.

Not to mention, I guess it ain't about what they look like, but more the process of wearing the jeans. Some folks could care less and for them, have at it. Buy predistressed stuff, but for us who care, we are just going to wear our jeans anyway.

Unfortunately i am going to have to disagree with some of the big hitters on this board. Have at it washboy, show us what you got.

[erk]

I am inspired by my naturally worn in jeans that take no less than putting them on in the morning.

now that sounds lazy to me...sounds like you live in bizarro world.

honestly, I'm curious to see what washboy is going to to.

even though I completely disagree with the whole idea of washing/pre-distressing jeans on many levels, I still wanna see how he does it and how authentic it really looks.