Color Matching is a huge skill and a must in the leather repair industry. I’ve been coming across a few vehicles lately that have been dyed with not so good color matching. Knowing that it’s usually someone either color blind or just down right…well I won’t go that far, but if the color isn’t right then your repair will look worse then if you had just left it alone.

Good lighting does help and pretty much a necessity. Natural lighting is better but in the garages we get stuck in the winter months it doesn’t help much, but what do you do, you improvise as my wife says. I use a dent light, which works pretty good, but I have also have used a under the hood light bar then hooking inside the car that stretches the width of the car and hooks on the door jams, they work great. Shorter light bars are great for light in a small places. Be careful with using florescence they sometimes throw your tinting off, if you can get some natural light to your project then great. The customer sees the the car in natural light mostly anyways so your color needs to be spot on.

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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.

This is a hard one for me to put out there for the average person to read because a lot of the products I use in my leather repairs are sold for professional use and if you don’t know how to use them properly you can make a bad thing look like a really bad repaired thing. It’s taking me a long time to master the craft of leather repair, it’s something you can’t just learn by reading this article. But I wanted to help out those of you who need a helping hand with that worn leather seat. Read the rest of this entry »

This is one thing that theres NOT a lot that can be done to fix. Leather has a grain, and a natural tendency to crease in a fashion that isn’t that appealing to some. Keeping the leather soft by keeping it clean and conditioning it can keep those creases from turning into cracks and in some cases from forming at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Sounds like I’m campaigning for an abortion rights rally or something, but no, really all I’m saying is the choice in paint guns is your key to a good or a bad repair. There are so many choices though, you have airbrushes, gravity feed guns, siphon feed guns, HVLP guns (and for those of you that don’t know what this is, it stands for high volume low pressure, meaning it takes less air to push more paint which cuts down on the over spray),the non hvlp guns, prevals, atomizers. Where do you start. Read the rest of this entry »

It is inevitably going to happen. The trip to the store for bleach, and the surprise when you get home. The @#$$ bleach has spilled in your new car and what do you do?

The first thing is to neutralize it.

Bleach has a ph level of 10 or higher in some cases, and you need to bring the ph level down. There are a few things you can use which can be found right in your kitchen. Vinegar, water, and baking soda. All have a low ph level which when mixed with bleach, neutralizes it and keeps it from eating your carpet. Read the rest of this entry »