Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy

An increasing number of accidents on the road are due to people focusing more on their cell phone than their driving. Five states and the District of Columbia have banned the use of hand-held phones while driving. A NYPD officer trying to enforce the cell phone use law told NPR that every second car has a person holding a phone while driving. A study by the insurance industry found that while phone use dipped by about half right after New York’s law went into effect in 2001, within a year, it had bounced back to pre-restriction levels, despite a $100 fine.

Not only for legal reasons, but also safety, convenience and allowing yourself a greater ability to multi-task, there are a few interior car accessories, aside from buying a Bluetooth and throwing your phone on the passenger seat, that ought to be considered in making driving and talking more efficient.

Non-Slip Pads. Can be easily stuck on top of the dash or any convenient place within reach. Allows for quick placement of phones as well as keys, iPods, iPad and anything that needs to be nearby.

Power Outlet/Charger/USB Adapter. Most versions will plug easily into the car cigarette lighter and some will fit into a cup holder. Various options will convert a single outlet to multiple power sources allowing you to charge your phone, computer and other accessories on the go.

Phone Holder Mounts. Most on the market are easily attachable and are adjustable to fit any phone. Some options include mounting to horizontal or vertical vents, on the glove box door or window channel. Using either a Bluetooth or simply the phone speaker, you can easily talk while driving. Numbers you have access to via voice command can be dialed, but manual dialing, no matter how close the phone is to you, is not recommended while driving.

Speaker Steering Wheel. One of the more recent interior car accessories to hit the market, it is Bluetooth compatible and totally hands-free. The device clips to the steering wheel and allows you to make, answer, end and reject calls safely and easily while focusing on the road. With features such as built-in speakers, voice dialing, call rejection, last number redial, call holding and call waiting it is very handy for people using their phone a great deal in the car. The built-in rechargeable lithium battery allows up to 5 hours of talk time or 250 hours of standby time.

Hey guys its Mike – The Interior Guy here with some more great tips for your Automotive Interior Repair needs. Long time no posts huh? Its been totally crazy here at the Warren Ranch with training, taking care of biz, and fun family activities, but had a great summer with business and personal, and I hope you all had the same.

Well to start out with I want to welcome a couple of new peeps to the list of Automotive Interior Trainees I’ve had the honor to train. First is a gentleman from Virginia Beach, Virginia…Reuel Atkinson,  he’s already a tech down there but just needed a little refresher and learn some new techniques to give him more guaranteed repairs. He spent 3 days with me and we covered a lot of material thru those days for sure but I know when he left he had a whole new outlook on his repairs. He’s an extremely picky guy like me so we got along great, lol.

Secondly but not least for sure is my guys from Delta Sonic, and a big shout out to my yankee buds, John and Scott…what a hoot of a time we had as well as a lot of learning and hard work. John and Scott spent the full 2 week session with me and are taking there excelled skills back to the Chicago and Buffalo, New York areas. I have to say I was extremely proud of these guys when we got done. I had them in la la land for the first couple of days with all the information I had thrown at them, but by the third and forth days they were itching to get in there and work. In my program I ease these guys into the repairs so when they do the repair they are knowledgeable enough with the products and how they work that they can do a repair with ease from start to finish, so I understand their itch, lol, but like I’ve always said…patience, patience, patience, that is probably the most important thing in this business. By the last days of training with John and Scott they were champs for sure. In fact they probably didn’t even need me there for some of the repairs at the end…

Well now that we’ve gotten the intros out of the way, lets get down to business…

Cracked Leather Repair and Conditioning the leather with Fatliquor before you repair.  Ok first I want to talk a bit about cracked leather repair and then the application of the fatliquor because they kinda go in congruent steps so…

I’ve struggled for years with cracked leather and how to sand and eliminate as much of a crack as possible. The reason is to have not to add too much filler or even none at all. I’ve come up with a pretty good trick I want to share with you today that i think will save you time and your customers leather as well.

It’s a lot like the previous posts of wet sanding leather with my prepping solution, which by the way I’ve kinda eliminated in the prepping of leather due to pH problems and I’ll explain that here in a minute.

Now cracks in the leather start in the top layer of urethane and migrate thru to the leather and thats where we’re gonna start is breaking through that top layer and expose the leather underneath. The reason for this is to eliminate the cracked coating and to soften the edges of the cracks in the leather making them look more like a creases then a cracks.

To do this I use a mixture of 60-40 Acetone and Denatured Alcohol with a piece of 120 grit sandpaper.  One thing to I will say when doing this is to be careful not to drip the solution onto other parts of the vehicle because it will leave a spot or remove the finish, so take a towel and hold it close and be careful!

Now take your sandpaper and a squeeze bottle of your mixed solution and pore a little of the solution onto the cracks and immediately start sanding, you’ll notice the coating smearing around and as the solution dissipates the coating will smooth down into the cracks and ball up and sand away. Do this until the coating is all but gone. Leaving a little in the cracks to lessen the need for filler. You’ll now be left with a raw spot on the seat and probably if the cracking isn’t to severe, no cracks at all. Otherwise the cracks will be smoother on the edges. I’ve found that in a lot of cases that just a light sanding with the solution is all it takes to rid the seat of cracks. But of course there are those really bad cracks, and those you need to be a little more delicate with due to there’s usually not much leather left. Just don’t sand to far with it and bust through. I’ve found folding the sandpaper into a roll and sanding the cracks helps to smooth them out even further and sometimes out all the way.

Once you’ve gone over your cracked areas with your solution and 120 grit, you might go back over the area with a 240 or even 400 grit sandpaper to smooth it out even more, making a nice area to start your repairs and coating of the leather.

Once you’ve sanded your cracks down and before you even do any repairs to the leather how bout conditioning the leather and making it nice and soft again?

The solution we used has dried the leather even more then it was before and really we’ve kinda untanned it as well. So by adding a fatliquor to the leather we replenish what we have lost and gain the nice supple feel back into the leather again and yes conditioning the leather prior to repairs can make a world of difference to your finished product.

Something I was never taught and I’m sure not many of you have heard of this either. What I’m talking about here is adding a fatliquor to the leather before you coat the leather or even do repairs.

Fatliquor is a softening solution added to the hides after the tanning process to make the hide more supple, soft and flexible. Since we’ve stripped some of these oils away we need to put them back.

All I do is pore a little on to the cracked area, rub it in with my finger or even a towel if I’m working in a larger area and let the leather just soak it up. I’ll usually go mix my colors or do another repair while that soaks in, it doesn’t take long depending on the humidity, but I can also speed up the drying time a bit with a hair dryer.

The fatliquor will not compromise any of your coatings as long as it is dry to the touch.

I was taught this by Pamela Delegomez with Leather Solutions. She’s an IICRC Leather Trainer and although I haven’t had the honor of meeting and training with her yet I did get a chance to talk with her over the phone about this and she recommended I do this with all leather repairs. It will not only soften the leather but also help with the repair process by adding moisture back into the hide hence giving you a better ending product.

Once you’ve fatliquored the seat your now ready to seal the area off and proceed with your leather fillers if need be. A lot of times after the sanding process with the Acetone and Denatured Alcohol solution I won’t need to fill at all, this solution will basically melt many of the smaller cracks away and all that is needed is a coating of color and I’m done. It really has saved me time and made my repairs look a lot better and last longer.

Always keeping in mind cleaning the area from any sanding debris  before proceeding with sealing, filling, and coating, will assure the best of adhesion with any job.

Remember me saying earlier that I’ve eliminated my prepping solution in my leather repair process. Well I’ve done this for a couple of reasons, one the pH was just to high and I think was messing with my coatings and I found the process I use now is just yielding me a better result.

I’m using a pH balanced cleaner now to clean the leather first which I highly recommend you check this stuff out. I get it from the Chemical Guys, its their Extreme Leather Cleaner and it does clean extremely well which I was impressed with and does not harm the leather nor hamper with any of my leather repair process.

So by using this cleaner I’ve eliminated my pH problem, which now I don’t have to neutralize before repairs, and helping the customer down the road by not using a harsh cleaner on their leather. I still do recommend you neutralize after using any high pH cleaner though.

One aspect of my prepping solution was opening the pores to the leather so the coatings would bite better, well I’ve gone to the Acetone and Denatured Alcohol to do that now with amazing results. The Acetone opens the pores like in my solution, but quicker and better, and the Denatured Alcohol melts the surface a bit giving me a better adhesion for my coatings as well as the Acetone, both tack the surface up very nicely. You can also use, which I also recommend, is Viper Products Leather Prep, works a lot the same.

I do this right before I spray and wipe my coatings in. Then proceed as I normally do finishing the seat off with my color and a nice topcoat of clear to give that nice finish feel.

Just like anything in this business, less is always better, this goes for the Acetone and Denatured Alcohol mixture as well as the fatliquor. Adding too much of either can cause damage to the underneath glues, seat heaters, foams, as well as the leather. So don’t go hog wild with your Leather Crack Repair and fatliquoring and end up damaging what your trying to repair.  Use very little fatliquor to moisturize because remember there already is fatliquor in the leather, actually water will soften better, but again watch how much due to mold and your repairs. It’s all a balancing act when it comes to Leather Repair for sure and with all the factors taken into aspect its hard sometimes to find that fine line of perfection.

Good luck with all your Leather Repairs guys and feel free to comment or email me with any questions you may have. I’ve temporarily deactivated my forum due to an incredible amount of spam. So its emails and comments for now. Thanks everyone for all your support…

My next adventure is the Mobile Tech Expo in Tampa, Fl. in January so hope to see y’all there!!!

Just got back from a 2 day Auto Interior Training seminar I held for Viper Products in the big city of Dallas, Texas and I have to say what a success it was. This was the first of its kind for me though. I’ve never had more then one person to train at one time, but it worked out very well I must say.

Randy Singh from Viper joined me on this little adventure of mine. He of course had everything all set up for me so all I had to concentrate on was the training.

We went down to get a ” Getready” Detail company with over 500 employee’s and over a hundred stores to service throughout the DFW area and the Houston area as well. We had 4 guys to train which were basically their top guys, 2 from Dallas 2 from Houston.

We flew in Thursday afternoon and met up with the guys for a little dinner and greet n meet then back to the hotel for some rest. Friday we kicked off the training, first things first was going over their kit that they had gotten prior from Viper Products.

This is always a crucial part of my training to show each person what each product is, what its used for, and how to use it. Your only as good as your product and knowledge of your supplies is crucial.

Next we moved onto color matching, which is the hardest and one of the most important things in Auto Interior Repair. You can have the best product, make the best looking repair in the world, but if your color is not right then you might as well have not have done the repair at all.

The kit that they had purchased was the pigment scale method, which if you all know me you know I only mix by eye so this was a learning experience for me too. Now I had experience with a scale system from my exterior touch-up days so picking it up for me wasn’t a problem. Its a good system for someone who has never mixed colors before but there is still a need for an eye for color. This pigment system is designed to get you close but not necessarily an exact match, you still have to tweak your color. This is something that takes a bit to get but once you get it, its second nature.

Once we worked on the colors for a bit we moved into doing some repairs and showing these guys what can and can’t be done with the supplies they had.  After a few repairs they jumped right in a were doing repairs like mad, which really I hadn’t planned on that till Saturday but what the heck the only way to learn is to do it. So off we went and lots of things were learned for sure, some mistakes but mostly success. These guys picked it right up and just soaked up the information. Its really nice to work with eager to learn people, makes my job easier for sure.

Saturday was our last day of learning and we started the day off by refreshing what we had done the day prior and then off to work we went. Repair, repair, repair! This was a good day for some good repairs. We went over the Velour kit first which didnt take a lot of time and did a few burn hole repairs and also did a blind stitch repair. Not to many blind stitching repairs are done these days with the nylon interiors, mostly seams and such, but it was good to show them how being able to hand sew is a definite benefit in the Auto Interior business.

After the Velour part of the training we packed up and went to one of the dealers they serviced and found a cracked leather repair on an Escalade which was great teaching tool for these guys. I was not only able to show off my skills with the repair of the seats, but was able show them a few other repairs that could be done that they will run into in the future.

We finished the day off with some dinner and great entertainment to wind down and finish the training. Relaxing and getting comfortable with each other is the best training of all, that way a long time relationship is built with the client and you.

I’m so glad I was able to do this type of training for these guys, its something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I finally got the opportunity and I’m definitely looking forward to many more like this to come.

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 »

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 »

Well that time of year is here again. The cold weather has arrived and here we go with trying to get our automotive water based dyes to dry in a reasonable amount of time.

Painting in temperatures less then 40 degrees makes it almost impossible to yield a perfect repair without a little preparation first.

The first and foremost thing is to heat up the area where the repair is being made. Now the best way to do this is with a hairdryer, not your heat gun. This will heat the area just enough to make it easier to work with and not damage the area any further (like a hole in vinyl getting larger due to to much heat being put to it). Heating the area will also help your compounds work like their supposed to along with giving you a warmer surface for the dye to stick to helping in curing time. Read the rest of this entry »

Heat guns have got to be one the most used tools in my business. I use them for heating my repairs on a daily basis, whether it be a vinyl repair, a leather repair, melting plastic when needed, or just heating up a piece prior to repair. Having the correct heat gun to do these repairs is crucial to your success.

If a heat gun breaks down while your doing a repair it can cost you time and money in the long run. So Read the rest of this entry »

I ran across this article a few minutes ago and just thought I’d share this with my readers too, it kinda makes you think a little about how you come off to others in these hard times. The article was written by a local Missouri guy just up the road from me in Joplin. His name is JD Buckridge, he is a marketing expert. I’ve been following him now for a while and he’s got some pretty good stuff to read, but anyways here’s the link to his blog, enjoy.

JD Buckridge – The Branding Specialist

Later…Mike”TIG”

I get into so many autos that the buttons on the radio are peeling off and what your left with are white buttons that just look awful. At night it can be at the least distracting. Have you seen one of those? Well Viper Products has done it again and has come up with a fix for those peeling buttons. Its a two part film. A translucent film and a black film with cut outs for the lettering. All you do is sand the peeling radio button to give you a smooth surface to put the film onto. Prep, then lay the film over the radio button and heat it to reform the coating to button. The lights from the radio still shine through the lettering and the finished product looks, as Viper Products always does, factory. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a really impressive interview of a successful blogger who has been making millions of dollars from his automotive blog, Alborz Fallah. Thought you guys might want to see someone blogging for cash.

Alborz Fallah is just a normal blogger like us, he started to blog on June 2006 with 3 different blogs. Only 1 made it a huge success. Alborz started his blog like most people, sitting at home, writing content each day outside of the time he spent at his full time job. His blog grew, he started making money and he just kept working. Today Alborz’s blog has full time employees, he travels to Europe to test some of the most prestigious cars in the world and it’s fair to say he is living a dream making big money writing about a topic he loves. You can hear the complete interview with Alborz done by Yaro Starak here .

Alborz is also a graduated student of Yaro Starak class Blog Mastermind. Seems the class really works, now CarAdvice.com.au has already become the 6′th biggest traffic site in Australia. It’s just a 2 years old blog, and what an amazing achievement.

You have to hear this interview, it’s so inspiring. Ive always loved hearing interviews with successful bloggers. That inspires me to work even harder to be the next successful blogger too. The Interview is available to download in a .pdf file. You can also download the .mp3 where you can listen to it which is better here.

You might also want to check out the Yaro Starak blog class if you want to learn more about blogging for cash, and possilbly follow in Aborz’s footsteps. Go to Yaro Starak Blog Mastermind Class.

Automotive interior repair is a skill of a combination of art and magic, yes I said magic…What I really mean is it’s a skill to be able to trick the eye from not seeing an interior repair that has been made, that is the magic.

One little trick that we keep in our bag of pixie dust, is the art of texturizing a repair.

If you look in your automotive interior you see many different textures on the surfaces of the plastic trim pieces, vinyl covered door panels, and your leather and vinyl seats. All of these textures you see we have to imitate in someway to repair whatever has been damaged.

Texturizing a repair takes knowledge of products to use, skill in using them, and a lot of patience. Yes patience, when doing any automotive interior repair, patience is a virtue, if you get in a hurry you will fail, I promise. Read the rest of this entry »

Resurfacing a leather seat in your automobile with today’s leathers require a real technique and the right leather dye to achieve a professional job. There are 2 types of leather that I have seen and worked on in today’s leather car seats. You have Nubuck leather or as some call it the soft leather and you have the finished leather which is mostly what you see. The leather dyes you use are completely different too. Aniline dye is used with the soft stuff and a water borne urethane dye for the finished leathers, both mixed with premium tannery pigments. Resurfacing leather applies to the finished leather, when you dye suede the aniline dye is a penetrating dye, so here’s the right way to apply dyes to a finished leather seat. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a must see. Leather Magic is something else, if this product does what it says then wow. Not only is durable it stretches and holds in place.

There are a few downfalls, one the curing time. 48 hours, maybe for an individual but not for a tech in the field. The compounds I know of are quick and easy…And work. But if there is the repair that will hold up like that and then I’m all for to checking it out, looks. The other concern I have is dye, dying onto a wet surface…HMMMM. Don’t know. Well I’ll make a check into this and see.

Leather repair is a craft and not all products will work on everything. Trial and error to extent, but cleaning and prepping your area extensively, before you start any project will make your ending result a success.

Hope you like this it is pretty wild stuff.

If you got any comments on this one let me know, I’m really curious to see what everyone thinks on Leather Magic.

Sorry not meaning to be so harsh, it’s just for the past two nights I have been trying to get my website back up and running correctly. So a big apology to my viewers for the glitch in the site.

The problem was in the update from WordPress.  The new 2.5 version was released with a few bugs. Now I myself should have known to wait for a little while until the bugs were worked out but I did it anyway and payed a little for it. My site was viewable, but I couldn’t edit on my end.

Now I have confidence in WordPress and I know the bugs will be worked out, and wanted to say that I Do like the new layout of 2.5. It’s going to take a little time to adjust but the layout is nice looking and things seem to be working as they should.

So I just wanted to say hey to everyone and let you know I’m back, so post your questions in the forum and let’s get back to work.

GOT A CRACK IN YOUR SEAT?

Let me show you how the problem started, how to fix the problem, and how to prevent the problem from happening again.

Well of course I’m talking about your leather or vinyl car and boat seats. Read the rest of this entry »