Depending on how it's made, you can perf it and made it look good.  It takes alot of time and patience.  I have an Alpinestars TZ-1.  Only place it is perfed as stock is the white panels on the upper front.




I couldn't find anything that I liked as already perfed, so I bought another.  I did a simple grid pattern.  I used a piece of perf aluminum and marked the jacket w/ a fine wet erase marked.  Then used that pattern for the hole punch. 



don't forget the back



I did the front, back, arms, and underarms.  This is the jacket I wear most often now that  it's done.  I'll wear it till about 90 degrees F.  It's still fine while riding, but stuck in traffic... then it's just another leather jacket, and hot.

bigger versions of the pics here

That came out well - better than some of the professionally perforated ones I've seen.

Thanks.  Time and patience (not something I always have).  This took me about an hour a night (all my hands could take) for probably 3-5 nights.  When I got tired, I'd quit so I didn't screw it up.

I've heard some good things about the work done by Barnacle Bill's, but no personal experience w/ them.  I think I heard about someone getting them to perf their existing leathers.

Quote from: scoprire on July 26, 2009, 07:11:09 AM
Thanks.  Time and patience (not something I always have).  This took me about an hour a night (all my hands could take) for probably 3-5 nights.  When I got tired, I'd quit so I didn't screw it up.

I've heard some good things about the work done by Barnacle Bill's, but no personal experience w/ them.  I think I heard about someone getting them to perf their existing leathers.

What did you use to actually make the holes?

I went to a Tandy leather store and got a hollow punch made for leather.  I used a block of UHMW (plastic) on the inside of the jacket.  One light tap of a nylon faced mallet on the punch to indent the leather (so the punch didn't slide around) then a good tap or 2 to actually make the hole.  I used a piece of AL like this



To mark my pattern.  I clamped it to the jacket using spring clamps so it wouldn't knock it out of position and marked all the holes at once.  I used it since you can get it in different hole patterns and sizes.  A fine point marker worked well to mark the hole in the grid.  Remove the grid, set the punch on the dot and then punch it. 

After a couple of nights doing this, I was questioning what I'd gotten into.  It took awhile, but I'm happy w/ the results.  If you've got some high $$ leathers, you might want to practice on a scrap piece of leather to see how it behaves 1st.  I got this jacket on ebay, so I just jumped right in. 

I used a smaller punched hole than what was in the white part of the jacket.  I could have probably gone to the bigger hole w/o a problem, but I didn't want to weaken the leather too much.