Cracked Leather – Wet Sanding The Leather Cracks
Today was pretty much a lazy day, didn’t have a real busy day. Did mostly leather repair with a few cloth repairs thrown in. Didn’t get any pics today though.
I wanted to talk about a Volvo S70 that I worked on. This was a definite cracked leather repair. The drivers seat was the worst as usual, but this one I also did the passenger seat and the rear seat base where someone decided to dye it the wrong color. Gotta love the people that think they can cover up dirty seat with a rattle can of dye, what they don’t take into consideration is the customers that buy these cars, it’s pretty sad.
This car was one that I looked at last week. I had my customer take it to the upholstery shop first to have the side of the lean back replaced, due to some pretty large holes and cracks in the vinyl. I would have done a vinyl repair on it but the cracks were into the seam and where they were positioned I felt a vinyl repair would probably not hold or look good.
Thats one thing I’m not real keen on, doing a vinyl repair over a seam. If your looking for a repair to really stand out, then cover up a seam. It looks awful and just looks repaired. I’m into making leather seats look new not repaired. But I must say there are those customers that just don’t care what it looks like, they just don’t want a hole. Those are customers that will come back to haunt you, believe me. If you think your repair is going to show make sure you make it clear to them that it will, and try to recommend an upholstery shop. Bad repairs reflect on you.
The seat bottom on the drivers seat was pretty cracked where your legs go and the bolster. I took a heavy grit sandpaper, a 120 grit and my prepping solution and wet sanded the cracked areas. This not only leveled off the cracks, but also filled the cracks with the dye from my wet sanding with my prep solution.
If you’ve read some of my other stuff, you know what I’m talking about with the prep solution, but if not here it is again. Use rubbing alcohol, TSP substitute, acetone, ammonia, and water, mixed in fifths in a spray bottle. This is my prep solution, this stuff not only cleans but helps to soften up the existing dye and also opens the pores to the leather to accept the new dye. I have found this works as a great wet sanding solution with water based dye. It works a lot like Sem Sand Free, it melts the dye hence removing the edge.
I sprayed the cracks with the solution then sanded with the heavy grit sandpaper, the cracks were virtually gone after I was done. I then sealed off the cracks with my leather glue then filled them with a soft fill leather fill. After dry, with a little help from my hair dryer, I sanded them smooth with a finer grit sandpaper (240 grit) to smooth things out. Applied the grip base then dyed the leather seats.
I also had to dye the side pieces that had been replaced, they were a shade off, so to make the seats look right I dyed them too.
One thing to keep in mind is to make the cracks look like a natural crease. Don’t goop the compound on and make them totally smooth, it seems when you do the repaired areas stand out from the rest of the leather seat. There are some instances where you will need a totally smooth surface, but in this case it looked better to make them look like a natural crease.
Well hope this helps out on your next cracked leather repair. Try the wet sanding method and let me know how it goes.
Later – Mike “TIG”
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