Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy

Making a repair on Vinyl or Leather hold and last for years is an ongoing quest for all of us automotive interior professionals. Lately I’ve been playing around a bit more with my iron in my repairs and have found it really has saved me on some of my repairs. It’s a tool that to be honest with you I haven’t used much but I guess had forgotten what I was missing.

Getting a vinyl or leather repair level and smooth can be tricky with the different foams and backing materials. By using an iron can better your chance of getting that repair level and smooth without bulging or pushing in the vinyl which can happen with doing your repairs with a heat gun and pressing your grain pad with your hand to achieve your grain. Read the rest of this entry »

I got an email here a while back from a fellow automotive interior professional wanting to know if he could “wipe on” the water based leather dyes we use to restore the worn automotive leather seats. I of course responded with a big “yes”. This is one of the many little tricks of trade that will get you just one step closer to perfection in doing an automotive leather restoration job.

Believe it or not I myself just really caught on to this just here recently. I have always wiped areas with my hand but not the way I’m about to tell you.

The “Wipe and Spray technique” is a technique that has improved my final result in my leather repairs immensely and will yours too, I promise.

All I do is in addition to my paint gun is to add a moist paper towel to the process of dyeing the seat. Now what I do with this paper towel will save you some time and money. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a post a while back about how to repair a worn leather steering wheel and have gotten a lot of traffic to it but to be honest with you it’s what I call a quick fix, not a good permanent fix like what a person really needs in this business. So today I’m gonna write it a little different and give the right way to repair a worn leather steering wheel.

All the leather in today’s vehicles are being dyed with a water based dye. It’s not only safer for the environment, which we all know is really big right now, but it’s also more flexible and better for the leather itself.

My last post I wrote I gave you a quick fix using a solvent based dye. Now I’m not saying that if you were in a pinch that using a solvent based would be a bad thing, but like I said it’s a quick fix, nothing you would really want to do for a customer that’s expecting a long lasting repair.

The basic’s are the same as far as the use of a drop cloth to avoid over spray getting on the instrument panel, and the prepping is kinda the same too. But what I’m here to do is to show the right way to do this.

So with that said here we go. Read the rest of this entry »

I have one thing to say…HOT! It has been scorching hot the past few days and I want to apologize for not keeping up with the progress on the Automotive Interior Restoration Training, but when I’ve gotten home at night I have just been to pooped to write.

Things have been going really good though and I have to say I am really confident that Bob will do just fine when he returns to South Dakota. He has really improved on every aspect in this business over the past 2 weeks, but I also have to say one thing and this really isn’t a brag, but it has been how he has been trained and the products we use. When I started I didn’t have half of what he has gotten or the products that we have in today’s market. I had to basically learn most of what I know today by trial and error, reading on the internet, asking a ton of questions of my suppliers, and the products I had were well let’s say not anywhere near what I use today. Read the rest of this entry »

What a scorcher it has been in the Automotive Interior Restoration Training! We basically melted today and it looks like it’s not going anywhere soon. Bob has been doing awesome if I say so myself!

Today he really got his feet wet and did his first vinyl repair and did great. He’s still a little green but that’s expected, he’s never done this before. This week we’re really going to work on his techniques and really get in there and do the work, and I do mean do it too. I’m basically just there for support this week because he’s the one who’s going to be doing the repairs. Read the rest of this entry »

Well I missed out yesterday writing about the Automotive Interior Restoration Training because to be honest I was just wiped out. We’ve been getting some really HOT and Humid days here, which is kinda unusual for this time of year here. Usually weather like this doesn’t hit here until July or August.

But with that said, we have had a really good time, my trainee Bob is really catching on like a natural. Like I’ve said before he’s not afraid to ask questions which is great and has even given me some great ideas in some of my repairs. It’s actually been nice having someone there to talk with and swap ideas considering I’ve always been by myself. Read the rest of this entry »

Today was a definitely a weird weather day in the Automotive Interior Repair Training Day 2. We started the day off with some pretty severe storms and didn’t really get to our first job until around 10am. As we were walking the lot we just about froze our butts off, pretty chilly I tell ya. But by noon the sun came out and the heat came in, thank goodness. Read the rest of this entry »

The first day of Automotive Interior Training began today for me and the first day of a New Career for my trainee, and what a wonderful day it was. I was a little nervous being that this was my first trainee but I got over that pretty quick when we got to our first job. Bob my trainee took to it like a natural. He’s a very personable guy and one that is very eager to learn. He wasn’t afraid to ask questions and understood everything I told him, it was really nice to have someone on the same page as me. I think that was what made me the most nervous was I was afraid he wouldn’t understand my way of thinking, but he did, and that was awesome. Read the rest of this entry »

Mixing your colors to match the automotive interior your working on has got to be the most crucial part to any repair. We are challenged everyday as a professional with not only having to repair a tear or a worn out seat or door panel but the color has to be spot on or we might as well have left it alone.

Lately I’ve been getting calls and emails from people wanting to know how to mix a color, what colors do what, and what colors they need to have with them.

As far as color matching, I match all my dyes by eye, meaning I use no formula, no mixing chart, just knowledge of colors and what they can do. So if your looking for a formula for how I mix my colors your looking in the wrong place.

What I’m going to do is give you the basics of colors and what colors will do when Read the rest of this entry »

Repairing and Painting Plastic

Plastic is one component that makes up most of the inside of a vehicle and can be one of most difficult to repair and paint. That is if you don’t replace the piece first. To be really honest when it comes to some of the plastic trim pieces, door panels, and kick panels its cheaper to replace the pieces then to repair them. But I do mean some, there are many instances where a little heat in the right spot or some dye applied to the surface can hide or repair an imperfection and save from replacement and that’s what I’m here today to talk about repairing and painting those cosmetic repairs on plastic interior panels. Read the rest of this entry »

Seems these days it’s been a little harder to make it in the upholstery repair business in the automotive industry but we are making it happen slowly but surely. My business has picked up, it’s not gang busters but I have had a steady stream of work. I’ve noticed the car industry is moving some inventory which is a good thing compared to a few months ago.

I’ve kinda avoided talking about this subject, the economy, due to the fact there has been so much negative put out there and I didn’t want to become another guy talking about how bad things are.

I want to get your mind to working and thinking of where your next step forward is going to be not sit there in a panic wondering where to go next.

Yes I paniced, not gonna say I didn’t, back in December when all was crazy and everyone was paying attention to Christmas, and not buying cars. Things got really slow. Read the rest of this entry »

The guys over at Detailing World have been chatting a little about an article I wrote a while back about wet sanding a leather seat. Some didn’t know this could be done and others were disappointed that I didn’t put any pictures up. I’m not one to disappoint anybody so today while out and about doing my usual leather repairs I came across a Chevy Suburban that I thought would be a perfect example for showing someone this little trick of wet sanding cracked leather. Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to put this color chart up here for you do it yourself people who are looking to match a Sem Aerosol vinyl and leather colors to the interior upholstery parts of your automobiles. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a phenomenon that has really got me kinda stumped on how this happens. A wear line on the edge of the lower bolster on a leather seat. The leather seats really not worn like you would think, the seat looks basically new but with this line running right along the seam of the seat. I know what the cause is which is sliding in and out of the vehicle but you would think it would wear a little different then a line that in some cases looks like someone has taken a router and carved out a line nice and neatly right down the side of the leather seat. Pretty wild if you ask me. But something I run across on a pretty regular basis and repairing the infamous wear line in a leather seat takes a little time and and know how to achieve a leather repair that you can be proud of and stand behind.

Now you first instinct is to grab your leather filler after a good prep and fill the area in, well don’t. There is a couple of reasons for this. First is if you go for the filler on a deep wear line, it won’t last and your wasting time and product. Second why would you want to load it full of filler when you can sand most Read the rest of this entry »

A little over a year ago I started a business adventure online. It started with a company called Clickbank. This company provides the internet with over 10,000 eBooks and computer software programs that can be downloaded safely and securely right to your computer. They provide everything from business and internet to family, fun and health. These products are all top of the line, in fact chances are you probably have a program or an ebook on your computer right now that you have downloaded from Clickbank and didn’t even know it. Read the rest of this entry »

Super glue can be your friend or your foe, depending on where and when you use it. Remember one thing, super glue is not flexible, and vinyl is. Using super glue in your vinyl repairs needs to be limited, very limited. Read the rest of this entry »

I came across these airbrush kits through TCP Global and just had to throw them up here. Airbrushing is a great hobby and one that I love to do in my spare time. Now being around paint all day you would think I’d want nothing to do with airbrushing, I mean I use one pretty much on a daily basis, but it’s different. When you sit down to create a piece of art it’s completely different then repairing a leather seat. Yes you do use your artistic abilities to do any type of upholstery repair, but when your creating a piece of art you kinda go into a different zone, at least I do. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been working lately with different leather repair compounds on leather wrapped steering wheels. There are so many different compounds used to repair leather but few that work really well for a leather steering wheel. The steering wheel takes more abuse then just about any other part in your vehicle. Think about it, you have to touch your steering wheel to drive and most of us don’t realize the damage until its already happened. There are some of you out there that have got to have a nervous habit or just like to rub the steering wheel a lot or something due to the shape of some of the steering wheels I repair, wow. Read the rest of this entry »

The holidays are finally over and we all can relax again. Hope you all had a great time spending it with family and friends. It’s always great spending some good quality time with the ones you love.While spending that time it never fails you come across an old piece of furniture in your parents garage that catches your eye and reminds you of your younger years. It’s still in great shape and you want to take it home but the only problem is it’s just ugly and out of date. There is a solution though, make it new again. It’s not that hard, it just takes a little spare time and very little money, which I like. Read the rest of this entry »