Wash my Pants

About a year ago I started wearing a pair of A.P.C. New Standards given to me by my lovely girlfriend :) These jeans are crafted from raw denim which is untreated, unwashed denim dyed in a deep indigo color. The purpose of raw denim is for the owner to break them in and eventually imprint personalized features onto the jeans via fading and areas of repeated contact and use. But the only rule is that you cannot wash them, or as few times as necessary in order to not wash out all the indigo before your personalized fades are permanently set in. So I wore the hell out of those bad boys for about a year without washing, wearing them for the good part of every week.



I threw everything I had at my A.P.C.s, and it tanked it. Best pair of jeans I've owned. However, the denim started giving way at the crotchal region, due to excessive biking, but was very skillfully repaired by the guys over at an independent denim shop called Rising Sun Denim over in Old Pasadena. Can't thank them enough! Breathed new life into my dying jeans I feared I would've had to soon retire.



After a year of use, I successfully made my mark on the jeans. A perfectly crafted and personalized pair of jeans just for my ass. So after getting them recently repaired and back up to fighting strength, I decided it was about time to wash em and see how my fades turned out. There are a couple methods of washing, from soaking in hot or cold water, to tossing them into a washing machine, or even swimming the ocean and using the natural salts and sand to cleanse the denim (a method proposed by A.P.C. themselves!). I chose to do a hot soak with laundry detergent to get a thorough clean and a medium amount of indigo loss.



As you can see, the water became DANK from all the accumulated dirt, grime, sweat, oils, random food wiped on them, drinks spilled on them and everything else that came in contact with my jeans. In the first couple pics I didn't even touch it, the jeans took care of themselves, in the last two tub pics I did a little bit of rubbing and agitation to clean it more thoroughly and that's where a lot of the indigo came out. After about an hour I drained it and rinsed them out, leaving me a soggy pair of pants.



Hung em up and let them dry overnight and in the morning they were reborn. I happened to have another pair of A.P.C.s, unwashed and worn for a couple months which I compared the washed one to.



In the end, I am very happy with the way the jeans turned out! I was afraid that I was going to retire these jeans due to the crotch blowout worsening and making the jeans extremely delicate, but with an awesome repair job and a hot soak, they feel a brand new pair of jeans made just for me. So here's to another year of use to my A.P.C.s, may they live long enough to do this all again.

Painting an Aerospoke

Last week, to my awesomely great fortune, I was able to nab a pair of Specialized (Now branded HED-3) Carbon fiber tri-spoke rims for my bike off of craigslist. These wheels are super light and super fast and are normally reserved for professional cyclists or uber-hipsters, since they cost a cool 300 to 400 per wheel. I fortunately was able to get them for $75 a pop, after an extremely sketchy craigslist deal. They were in great condition, however I wasn't a fan of the carbon fiber look and wanted to paint them a fresh white.

After a quick trip to Lowes, I picked up some masking tape, multi-surface cleaner, white primer and regular spray paints and a flat, non-gloss, clear coat.

Once I removed the stickers, cleaned the wheel from all dirt, grease and oil, and masked off the edges and hub, I moved everything outside ready to paint!

My workspace

End of the day

Painting took one of the rare beautiful days we have in Pittsburgh and I got to watch the construction of CMU's spring carnival throughout the day. Overall the painting came out very well, put a very insane and unnecessary number of coat of paint on it just to be safe. But the end product came out smooth and clean, just the way I imagined.

Masking tape removed

Installed on my bike

Looking back on the project, there are a couple extra things I could've done. First off, the white paint revealed a couple blemishes and dents in the carbon fiber which I could've filled and repaired before painting. And second, was to scruff and scratch the surface of the wheel before laying a primer coat to get rid of the resin epoxy layer on top so the paint sticks better. But I am damn pleased with myself on how the whole thing turned out!

Now I have a rear tripsoke, with a multigear cassette already in it, to do something with. I don't know whether to just use it as is, paint it, convert to a front wheel, or just sell it for a profit. Either way, it'll be a project for the summer!

Disclaimer

Hey everyone

This blog will be dedicated to my side projects or anything I think is cool. Its my first stab at writing a blog, but I wanted to start documenting some of the things I do and share it with everyone else.

Posts will most likely be about:
-Bikes
-Clothing
-Random shit

So here's to me hoping that I don't bail on this blog after like two weeks!
Cheers!