TBBRRP: Barbour Thornproof Repair Kit

I managed to track down two of the repair kit tins; I got two mainly because I wanted to use one and keep the other. I’m not sure why Barbour stopped producing these as they’re a nice little product. Presumably it’s because they make more money out of official repairs and new replacement jackets. Shame.

Barbour Thornproof Repair Kits

The Contents

The tin on the left (with three royal warrants) I won on eBay and the older kit (with two royal warrants), to the right, I found on Gumtree. The seller of the latter was based in Whitstable, so I thought it would be a good idea to jump on a train and head to the seaside for the afternoon.

Boat on the Beach

Whitstable’s Stoney Beach

Rusty Boat Winch

Beach Huts

Fortunately it was a lovely sunny day – something that’s been slow to occur this Spring – so I had a wander along the sea front and got some fish and chips. I also decided that I’d quite like a little beach hut that I could head to every now and again and be a hermit for a while.

As a quick trial of the Stormsure glue that I intend to use on some of the Barbour repairs, I decided to re-glue the insoles of my Quoddy Maliseet Oxford shoes. This would allow me to check the constancy of the glue, gauge the drying time and test the dried/cured strength.

Testing Stormsure glue on my Quoddy shoes.

• Question: Does the glue stick well?
• Hypothesis: The glue should stick well.
• Method: Put glue on the insoles.
• Result: The insoles stuck well
• Conclusion: The glue sticks well. It is good glue.

TBBRRP: Stormsure Glue

Stormsure Glue: ‘Fix rips, leaks and holes FAST!’

The tube of Stormsure Glue arrived in the post today from Amazon. I intend to use it on the worst rips as demonstrated by a rather posh sounding old chap, in the following video:

I really like the strong, flexible and waterproof quality that this glue gives once cured, however, I don’t really like the visual finish. My aim will be to use the glue and patches of fabric guled on the inside, as the video demonstrates, to mend the jackets war wounds. I  then hope to use some colour matched fabric from a Barbour Thornproof Repair Kit (if I win one on eBay) and neatly glue or sew an additional fabric patch on to the surface of the jacket, hiding the ugly scars.

The Barbour Border Repair & Reproof Project (TBBRRP): First Things First

First things first, this Barbour needs a bloody good clean… So that’s what I’ve done. With cold water and a piece of rag at the ready, I began to remove years of dirt and grime. The thorough post-clean inspection of the jacket revealed the full extent of repair needed, it quickly became evident that this would be a time consuming affair. The obvious huge tears – as show in the inserted photograph below – now seems even worse and there are more little holes all over the place than I had previously realised.

Anyway, the objective still stands… return this Barbour back to a functional, waterproof/thornproof jacket, halting its deterioration and extending its life for many many many years to come (fingers crossed). Hopefully the jacket will still take wax… but we won’t know that for a while yet!

The photograph above shows the particularly bad hand warmer pocket rip, this will need major surgery! It’s the repair that I’m both dreading and looking forward to the most. I’m dreading it as I could quite easily mess up and the coat will die; it is physically handing on by a thread. However, I’m looking forward to it in equal measure, because it’s been one of those steadily growing issues, worsening over time. And each time it has gotten snagged and ripped further, I’ve promised myself that I’d fix it up.

The final straw happened last weekend while I was smashing rocks in the garden (for use as foundation hardcore); I swung the sledge hammer above my head for a killer blow and caught the floppy pocket, causing the tear to creep further up the jacket. That was it, too damaged to even use as a haggard overcoat… It was either bin it or mend it. So if the operation is successful… it lives on.

Anyway, first things first. As you can see from the following few images, after a good clean the jacket looks better already, still a long way to go though. Next job (which I’m in the midst of as I write), acquire all the necessary repair items. I’m using Ebay (for a Barbour Thornproof Repair Kit), Amazon (for Stormsure glue) and I will go to Petticoat Lane Market (to find fabric for internal repairs to major rips and tears) one day this week if i can tear myself away from my desk at work for an hour, shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.

Cold Water & a Rag

Half & Half

Looking Better Already

The Barbour Border Repair & Reproof Project (or TBBRRP for short…)

Soooooo… its been an eternity since I wrote anything on this blog and I thought documenting my new spare-time DIY project – fixing my Barbour – would be a good way of resurrecting it; as well as giving me the impetus to fully realise the project (which I fear will be no small feat!) without the glaring eyes of the Internet judging me for giving-up.

I’ve had my Barbour Border for what feels like an age. It began life as the dominant alfa-coat in my outerwear wardrobe, but over the years, as wear and tear (and neglect) have set in, it has become marginalised to gardening, DIY, manual labour and other messy activities. And not through designated choice, it just became that jacket.

Since I’ve had the Border it has never been reproofed or repaired, which may account for its very dishevelled state. Anyway lets not point fingers or get into the blame game and just get right to the facts:

• Fact A: its fucked.
• Fact B: I’m going to fix it.

Firstly lets look at the jacket, as you can see from the inserted picture it’s a filthy, dirty, grubby old man of a jacket; it’s muddy, it’s ripped, it’s frayed, it’s lost some its labels, its lining is disintegrating, but more importantly, I still love it and I want to save it. I want to shave off at least ten years and make it look as good as new as it can.

Here’s a list of some of the jobs that need to be undertaken during this project to enliven this tired old Barbour:

• One: a thorough clean
• Two: mend major rips and tears
• Three: see to smaller repairs and lining tears
• Four: strengthen weaknesses zips, buttons, pocket corners etc…
• Five: reproof with ‘Thornproof Wax Dressing’

I’ve undertaken some research into repairing and reproofing old and knackered wax jackets and I think I will employ a number of techniques to hep me achieve a decent finish. I’ve been trying to purchase an old ‘Barbour Thornproof Repair Kit’ (which they’ve stopped making) for the materials and thread, which I will use on minor repairs and strengthening. I will patch up the bigger rips and tears with fabric on the inside and use ‘Stormsure’ glue to secure and make waterproof.

Anyway, first things first, I need to give it a good clean before I work out exactly what needs fixing and in what order. A few more photos below just to emphasise how muddy, torn and tattered the jacket really is… Wish me luck.

Ripped Sleeve & Frayed Pocket

Destroyed Handwarmer Pocket

Rips & Tears Everywhere

RatKind

“A world without rodents would be a very different world. It is less likely to come to pass than a world dominated by rodents and free of people. If nuclear war destroys humanity and most of the rest of life, a good bet for survival in the short term, and for evolutionary ancestry in the long term, is rats. I have a post-Armageddon vision. We and all other large animals are gone. Rodents emerge as the ultimate post-human scavengers. They gnaw their way through New York, London and Tokyo, digesting spilled larders, ghost supermarkets and human corpses and turning them into new generations of rats and mice, whose racing populations explode out of the cities and into the countryside. When all the relics of human profligacy are eaten, populations crash again, and the rodents turn on each other, and on the cockroaches scavenging with them. In a period of intense competition, short generations perhaps with radioactivity enhanced mutation-rates boost rapid evolution. With human ships and planes gone, islands become islands again, with local populations isolated save for occasional lucky raftings: ideal conditions for evolutionary divergence. Within 5 million years, a whole range of new species replace the ones we know. Herds of giant grazing rats are stalked by sabre-toothed predatory rats.* Given enough time, will a species of intelligent, cultivated rats emerge? Will rodent historians and scientists eventually organise careful archaeological digs (gnaws?) through the strata of our long-compacted cities, and reconstruct the peculiar and temporarily tragic circumstances that gave ratkind its big break?”

I love this passage, by Richard Dawkins, on a post-human rodent world. I’m currently living in India and there feels – in the hot rapid development of a nation striving for power, wealth and growth – a certain lacking regard for the environmental strain that economic expansion causes. There feels (behind the veneer of money and IT) , not necessarily an Armageddon, but that the equilibrium of life and resource is becoming strained, unbalanced and that in the near future there could be a collapse, of-sorts. Natural resources being lost to rivers of plastic waste, becoming stagnant and lifeless, the land becoming dry and arid because of falling aquifers, concrete shells of buildings left baking in the piercing sun, rusty air-conditioning units unable to cool the dense heat.

When I let my mind wander, with the above passage in mind, I can just about see the end of a civilisation of people, where only the rats survive, scavenging within the wasteland and surviving on gnawed carcasses, nondescript in the savage of the barren environment. Could it happen… would India be the first to go? maybe. I hope not though, I like it here!

Check out my ‘End of Days‘ Haiku.

Seven Unknowns.

 

 

 

 

Rainy City Stories.

Haven’t post anything in ages… been really busy finishing off my BArch at Manchester, pretty much finished my education in Architecture now, which is a strange feeling, as I feel like I’ve been doing it forever!

Anyway, I needed to do something a bit different and came across Rainy City Stories the other day. Its an ‘interactive literary cityscape’, mapping written pieces about Manchester, by location, from both authors and amateurs.

Feeling in a somewhat poetic mood today, I wrote and submitted a quick poem about walk through Manchester city centre on a typically indecisive half inclement, half sunny summer’s day.

Here it is:

Today, in Manchester.

Clouds above, rolling, looming.
Cumulonimbus… they’ll soon be booming.
Banging, crashing, clashing together.
Typically ominous Manchester weather.

Sunny now, rainy just then.
The clouds look fit to burst again.
Arndale Market, could take shelter?
Tram Horn Blasts! Nearly took a belter.

Market Street, busy, bustling.
To get out the drizzle, people hustling.
Summers here, yet the streets get damper.
My face longs for that sunshine pamper.

Turning grey, streets deserted,
Feel alone, disconcerted.
Rainfall slows, but the city’s still bare.
Wait. Is that blue sky over there?

Sky shatters, clouds pass.
Breaking apart like broken glass.
Glorious sunshine pierces through.
Piccadilly Gardens I’m coming for you!

~ dk

Don’t forget to check out some of the other stories up on the Rainy City Stories map.

Up There

http://vimeo.com/10562000

OWT Creative, a design collective from Manchester, recently mentioned this.

A lovely little documentary about a precarious craft practiced high above the streets of NYC by a dying breed of artists. The short film follows painters involved within the fading tradition of hand painted advertising and their struggle to keep it alive.

I’d love to see these building scale paintings from the busy streets below!

check out OWT Creative’s website here.

Gold Panda: Marriage EP

Artwork from Gold Panda's Marriage EP

Gold Panda has released Marriage, a track from Lucky Shiner, as an EP with the original track presented alongside four additional remixes by Star Slinger, Baths, Forest Swords and Halls. A must listen, surely…

Head to Soundcloud to checkout more tracks by Gold Panda and the other Artists.
The Marriage EP can be bought online at Ghostly International.

Messing With Photos.

Should definitely be getting on with my project work… However, I got a bit bored of working on it, so decided to leave it for a while and mess about with some of my photographs. Originally cross-processed 120 prints, I felt like cutting them up, adding some shapes and messing about with sizes on my computer.

Some more…