Sideslip
Well-Known Member
This is the aged "McQueen" Roughwear which is a pleasure to wear and behold. You can’t go wrong with John’s craftsmanship.
-
When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
My last A-2 (hopefully) - Good Wear
- Thread starter Smithy
- Start date
This is the aged "McQueen" Roughwear which is a pleasure to wear and behold. You can’t go wrong with John’s craftsmanship.
Mr. Mike
Well-Known Member
Thanks a lot Kermit3D - and sure - here we go:Absolute beauty !
I'm jealous.
The day I order an A-2 from JC (that day will come, for sure), I'm seriously considering a "combat clone". I think it really adds something.
Just out of curiosity, can you give me the dimensions of this jacket ?
Congratulations, enjoy !
Following the measuring method BK proposed at the very beginning (see their webpage) the following measures would come out:
Pit to Pit: 23”
Shoulders: 18.75”
Back: 26.25” (including knits)
Sleeves: 26” (including Cuffs)
Front: 22.5” (along zipper)
Waist: 20.5” (right above knits)
Kermit3D
Well-Known Member
Thanks a lot !
Mr. Mike
Well-Known Member
I was going through the same turmoil. At the end I wonder why I haven't tried it earlier (or even better had ordered all my jackets with that finish
). But joking aside - I asked John to do the aging on the hide by only apply moderate or no wonky stitching. I think that the wonky stitching actually only really make sense with late war period contracts (when mass production and hurries were at its peak). It finally remains a matter of taste but I consider wonky stitching comparably dangerous like putting patches and name tags on the jacket (...)As you can see from my photos, John applied the wonkiness extremely sensitive and mostly at locations that don't jump into the eye right away (e,g, behind the wind flap, or collar, or inside the collar. This is simply amazing and greatly done. If you want to highlight how such little flaws came into a hectic production process you can do so but you need to search for a while to take notice yourself if not pointed to.
mulceber
Moderator
Agreed - I had similar thoughts with ordering my Rough Wears: RW did unusually good work for the AAF (good stitching, good cuts), so I asked for a bit of hurried stitching on my 27752 (wartime), but none at all on my 18091 (pre-war).
B-Man2
Well-Known Member
I’ve had this done on a couple of occasions…. And each time the thought occurs to me
“Ahhh … a perfect reproduction….. of a flawed original” …. and then I think to myself how strange that sounds
ZuZu
Well-Known Member
I was going through the same turmoil. At the end I wonder why I haven't tried it earlier (or even better had ordered all my jackets with that finish
As you can see from my photos, John applied the wonkiness extremely sensitive and mostly at locations that don't jump into the eye right away (e,g, behind the wind flap, or collar, or inside the collar. This is simply amazing and greatly done. If you want to highlight how such little flaws came into a hectic production process you can do so but you need to search for a while to take notice yourself if not pointed to.
I’ve had this done on a couple of occasions…. And each time the thought occurs to me
“Ahhh … a perfect reproduction….. of a flawed original” …. and then I think to myself how strange that sounds
I think wonky stitching is exaggerated and even not a real thing. Original A-2s were made with industrial sewing- fast but precise- and I don't think that overt mistakes slipped though inspection that often.
Pockets mismatched above the waistband is not detrimental to the jacket and it's not wonky stitching- it's a characteristic of originals and it happened for some industrial sewing reason. Most repros would look BETTER if the pockets weren't so friggin' even. They'd look more ORIGINAL.
Mismatched pocket flaps with different shapes, rounded corners on collars, cuffs not sewn in a perfect circle, zipper tabs uneven and rounded off, stitch lines slightly off especially in not-so-visible places are not wonky- again just a product of industrial, fast sewing. I'd argue that the cuff line being a perfect circle is actually a mistake because so many originals don't have that- it looks odd.
Rarely do you see mistakes on originals where it would be easy to make one like the stitch line around the pocket body 1/32" away from the edge, or the line of the windflap in the front body panel.
Very rarely on originals do you see an overt sewing mistake which leaves a line of holes or where a stitch line is gone over twice.
Done correctly a "Combat Clone" should only have "wonky" stiching visible on an Aero or a RW 27752 (for example) and even there only in certain places. On Aeros wonky stitching is visible on the epaulets often- and really low stitches per inch. On a 27752 pocket flaps tend to be way wonky sometimes- again something which happened because of fast industrial sewing.
IMO almost all A-2s even wartime ones are sewn with acceptable, common, normal industrial sewing for a leather garment which is cruder than cloth sewing.
IMO to do a proper "Combat Clone" the contemporary creator should try to copy the foibles of ONE wartime A-2. Literally copying the "mistakes" or "slightly off" stuff on ONE original.
IMO ageing artificially on a jacket where the rest of the jacket didn't keep up can look pretty silly- the perfect cuffs and lining can be jarring!
B-Man2
Well-Known Member
All good talking points ZuZu but I think that mistakes were just part of the everyday routine and boredom of working on stock piles of jacket parts. ( so I know from past posts that you may very well say “where’s your proof of that statement”) so here’s why I think this is an accurate statement. Most of the guys here are aware of a couple of stories I’ve told regarding my mom who worked at the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot for 15 years, from 1940 thru 1955. She was a sewing machine operator and there wasn’t anything she couldn’t make on a sewing machine. As most here know 90 percent of the WWII clothing came out of the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot. Check any wartime label on any piece of clothing to fact check me.
Now on several occasions in the 1950s during the Korean War, I remember that she would put in 12-15 hour shifts sewing together pockets and pants on the M-1943 paratrooper pants and M-1943 Jackets . I remember her telling my dad that she liked working the longer shifts because she was working “piece work” which meant that she was getting paid by the number of items she completed during her shift. The more items she sewed together during her shift the more money she made. She would often say how some of the girls would just sew shit together hap hazardly just to get the stuff put together and stacked in the completed bins, so that they could make more money. The quality inspectors would only inspect one garment in a bin so 90% of the time the stuff went through unchallenged. So I think it’s safe to assume that much of the same thing took place in the manufacturing companies for A2 jackets. Seems very plausible I’d say .
Now on several occasions in the 1950s during the Korean War, I remember that she would put in 12-15 hour shifts sewing together pockets and pants on the M-1943 paratrooper pants and M-1943 Jackets . I remember her telling my dad that she liked working the longer shifts because she was working “piece work” which meant that she was getting paid by the number of items she completed during her shift. The more items she sewed together during her shift the more money she made. She would often say how some of the girls would just sew shit together hap hazardly just to get the stuff put together and stacked in the completed bins, so that they could make more money. The quality inspectors would only inspect one garment in a bin so 90% of the time the stuff went through unchallenged. So I think it’s safe to assume that much of the same thing took place in the manufacturing companies for A2 jackets. Seems very plausible I’d say .
Micawber
Well-Known Member
It’s a bit more involved than that…
Sabo
Active Member
or wear it as you do while working in the countrysideIt’s a bit more involved than that…
Dany McDonald
Well-Known Member
Burt, very informative and interesting factual anecdote. Your description of the context your mother worked in really explain what I've been observing on original gouv military garments.
My two original A-2's have many signs of what I would called a rushed garment assembly. I am not mixing, rushed with botched here.
And the results (not necessarily pleasant) of a repetitive task in the workplace are well documented today. My guess is that in those days, one would just gulp it down and move forward.
Thank you for sharing.
D
Dany McDonald
Well-Known Member
Those a very interesting points if a "clone" is the main goal in a reproduction* project. This approach while being time consuming, is one way of delivering coherent details that not only look but feels original.
Now I feel bad cause I was going to have my Aero cloned by John Chapman, after a very, very nice message discussion with him. That's like 2 years ago.... But the D-1 and B-6 are so nice......
D
ZuZu
Well-Known Member
An anecdote from the Korean war doesn't necessarily prove anything- the proof for A-2s is in the current examples we have today. Haven't seen any gross examples of horrible wonky stitching on 99.9999% of A-2s I've seen or looked at photos of. Let's see some examples.
ZuZu
Well-Known Member
Well said!
mulceber
Moderator
Y'know we do have a whole thread documenting these kinds of defects.
ZuZu
Well-Known Member
Where?
mulceber
Moderator
The link is in the post you quoted.
Dany McDonald
Well-Known Member
Hey thank you for reposting this link, I totally forgot about that 21996, its amazing how very dark, well black, some were painted.
D
