The Boulevard of Broken Jeans - The Unit 2 Repair Thread

[JoshC]

@jonpwn Ooh, we have a few different blues. From what I can see and use fairly regularly, I have six different blues in rotation at the moment, going from a pale ice blue to an electric blue and navy. The one I'm using in the video is my most used blue, as it has a slight grey popping through it, which helps blend it for many different fading stages.

No, so the fabric I use for the patching is lighter. I prefer to use a lighter fabric in general compared to something thicker, especially if the patching fabric is heavier than the fabric itself. It can cause denim to bobble out, and it doesn't look great. In my opinion, the lightweight fabric is just there for an extra piece of reinforcement. They definitely help, but it doesn't make it indestructible, and again, using something too thick along with darning can cause more strain on the denim around the affected area, so I prefer to use something a little bit lighter. If you catch the hole early enough, you don't need to, but if there's a clear breakage or the denim is super thin, then it's worth using a patch.

I do go perpendicular in some cases, especially for big knee repair repairs, as I have done for a previous repair, which is pictured up top. It is hard at times when choosing which thread to use because if the denim hasn't faded much. You have a lot of that deep indigo still in place. You could go for a navy that would blend in nicely, but with age and time, the jeans will still fade, but the thread used won't, so you can end up with a dark navy repair job with nice faded-out jeans, same if you go light on dark jeans you may be stuck with a clashing of light and dark until it fades into the denim, if this makes sense.

[JoshC]

Iron Klaus has a helper in the workshop today with @Freeman sorting out an old patch we had spare from an unusable pair of relove jeans for a customer on his worn-in pair.

[Giles]

Good men. I always used to do that by hand.......

[JoshC]

@Giles oft, yeah I have done before when I first started, but got freeman to sew down the edges to help keep it place before using the flat stitcher.

[JoshC]

Been a super busy few weeks here at HQ, but I am back on the repairs and 12 heading out the door tomorrow, that I have got sorted today. Feels good to be back on the machines and getting all your jeans fixed up again.

[JoshC]

Got some really big repairs at the moment with multiple holes so Bubba Ray (darning machine) has been going hard, and in true Iron Heart style it broke the needle, reload and go again 🪡

[Iron Geezer]

Amazing work. Good to know my jeans can last a loooong time.

[Freeman]

Been helping @JoshC with repairs over the last couple of days.

Very stoked on this pocket repair. I'll try and grab some more shots of more I've done before they're shipped.

[68degreesorless]

Gotta give props to Josh on my recent repairs and the overall level of customer service coming from IHUK. I sent in some SBGs and a chambray. The repairs came back great. Fixed the pocket bags, crotch, and hem cuff lines on the SBGs and a blown out elbow on the chambray. All the work is top notch. There was also a strange customs issue with the return shipping and IH took care of it no problem.

Clearly it's less than ideal logistically and environmentally to send repairs from US to UK and back, but should you find yourself in need with no other good option at hand, Josh and team do great work.

[northsouthdenimguy]

One of a handful repairs on my 666 XHS 25oz and I imagine the most difficult. Turned out really good.

[Slash]

@JoshC Very nice thread ! only falling on this today. Video was very cool

Impressed by the repairs on some of the blown out crotches that looked not fixable in my naive eyes