Often, the distinction between an amateur fix and a professional fix is having access to specialist supplies and understanding the tricks of the trade. This is particularly true in leather where using the wrong supplies may lead to making a complete mess of your leather upholstery. Home remedies such as olive oil, milk, and shoe polish will eventually cause your leather to rot and smell. Attempting to “eyeball” a colour match with the repair products available at the hardware store will produce a scratch seem worse, not better. My intention in this report is to share with you where to get the ideal products to fix scuffs and scratches on your leather, and a couple of tips to ensure a successful fix. First, Identify the Leather Upholstery leather comes in several diverse types and finishes. If you’re repairing furniture upholstery, then lift up the seat cushions and find the label that lists the cleanup code. The code will be “A” for Aniline leather ,”P” for Safe leather, and “N” for Nubuck leather. If you’re repairing auto upholstery, the leather will always be “P”, Secure leather. The repair techniques will differ for each type of leather. Secondly, Identify the Damage Leather is completed in a fashion like wooden furniture: the unfinished material is stained or coloured and then a top coat is applied. A scuff is harm to the topcoat; no colour is eliminated. A scrape goes through the topcoat and eliminates color. Cuts, burns, rips and tears are more significant damage and need much more serious fix than scuffs and scratches; these fixes are beyond the scope of this report. How to Repair Scuffs in Leather Upholstery Soft, natural Aniline leathers are finished with wax. To fix a scuff in Aniline leather, all you will need to do is redistribute the wax. This is achieved by warming the leather using a hair dryer and rubbing your hands over the scuffed area. Most upholstery leather is “P”, or protected leather. Protected leather is basically painted; occasionally it’s dyed through and then painted, and then topped with a transparent coating of water-based lacquer. Scuffs happen when the lacquer top coat is ruined. From time to time, scuffs can be buffed out with an excellent leather lotion and a rag. If this does not work, it is going to be essential to re-apply lacquer into the topcoat. Re-apply lacquer by misting the damaged region with nitrocellulose or acrylic lacquer, which can be bought in a spray can in the neighborhood hardware store. Examine the spray in an inconspicuous area to be certain that the sheen is correct. Spray in short bursts; don’t soak the region. It’s ideal to use the lacquer in thin layers. Be sure the leather surface is clean and permit the lacquer to dry completely between applications. How to Repair Scratches in Leather Upholstery Scratches are marks which have gone through the leathers’ topcoat and eliminated color. If shade is removed, odds are you have protected leather; Aniline and Nubuck leathers are through-dyed and also a scrape wouldn’t remove color. To repair, it’s crucial to replace the shade. The trick to successfully fixing protected leather would be to get a shade that matches your upholstery perfectly. The only way to guarantee a perfect colour match is using a custom-formulated, computerized color match. The principal manufacturer of vinyl and leather coloring products in the USA is a firm called SEM. SEM paints are elastic and won’t crack and split when used on a surface. Many leather repair professionals buy SEM products online from Vinyl Pro of Western PA http://www.vinylpro.com. Vinyl Guru has a computer colour matching service; just send them a swatch of your leather and they’ll match the color. When you purchase your custom-matched color, get it in an aerosol sprayer. Where to Locate a Leather Swatch To discover a swatch, flip your furniture over and peel back the black dust cap in the base of the chair/sofa, or look under your car seat. Using a razor knife, cut leather behind the basic line. You’ll require a swatch about one inch square to be able to match the colour. The Way to Make the Repair Luckily for leather repair technicians, cowhides aren’t perfect. Cows become scratched by barbed wire, stung by bees and bitten by mosquitoes. All these can leave scars on a mask. It is not necessary to match the grain onto a simple scratch; re-coloring the harm will appear natural enough. If the edges of the scratch are rough, carefully trim the loose edges with a razor blade and sand marginally with 400 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper. Wash the area well with denatured alcohol. If the scratch is deep, use an artists’ brush or foam brush to dab on some of the colour into the scrape. Wipe any excess paint from the edges using a Q-tip; make certain to get all the extra paint out of the grain. Dry the paint using a hair dryer. When you’re satisfied that the scrape is adequately filled and the dabbed paint is dry, spray the area using the aerosol sprayer filled with your custom color. Spray using short, quick, misting bursts, and feather out the edges slightly from the scrape. With these “few tricks of the trade” and professional quality materials, you’ll have the ability to earn professional-looking repairs to your scratched and scuffed leather upholstery.
