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.

Test a spot with a dab of leather dye on your finger, wipe a spot in the area to be repaired, dry it, and if it disappears, bingo. Otherwise tint it.

Most of the colors we encounter in todays cars are tans, grays, blacks of course, some blues, burgundy, not many reds, but I have seen on Mustangs red bolsters, whites in some, and in the custom world, Wow look out. A lot of tricks I would love to learn in doing real custom work like custom airbrushing in the interiors of vehicles, anyways..

The colors I use the most in my leather repair dyes are Black, White, Yellow oxide, Red oxide, and Brown. I also use on occasion Green, Blue, and Purple, rarely Yellow and Red, Silver and Gold for metallics with Pearl white to offset the side tones, and growing everyday, with the growing automotive industry. Colors and more colors, fun, fun, fun…

Of course white and black make gray, and brown and white make tan, so, add a little black to go grayer with tan or darker with both, white to lighten, yellow oxide or red oxide to richen the color or to give the yellow or red tints you see in todays autos, brown works good sometimes but the browns seem to be on the red side, if it’s too red add green to tone it down. BMWs have a blueish tint to their dyes add a little blue or purple to the grays, Dodge add a little red oxide to the dye to give a reddish tone, Infinity’s light tan has just a hint of green to it, Chevy’s have a little bit more of a yellow-brown look to them in the darker dashes adding a little yellow oxide gives you that tone. Ford has a pretty true grey with a little yellow oxide though in some cases even add a little brown, this is for both the dark and light. Ford trucks tan has kinda a pink look to it, in some older models, add red oxide but they do have a lot of yellow to them too. Cadillac is pretty easy white and brown with a hint of yellow oxide and a bit if black, just a little though. With black tone it down for a duller look with a little bit of white, add your duller and you have flat black sometimes a little brown too for and older Dodge steering wheel but eliminate the duller save that for like BMW dash pieces. Dodge light gray seats add a little purple. Whew..that wore me out. You get the picture I hope, colors are just one of those things either you get it or you don’t.

Just test each time you add a color and look at it and see what color it’s missing. I use my pigments sometimes to get there a little faster. If it looks like it needs a color…add it a little at a time and dab another spot, dry it, then check again. You want it to disappear. If it does then your ready to go. Add your flex, cross-linker, strain your paint with a paper paint strainer into the cup and spray away with your leather dyes on you leather repair. If I left something out and your having problems with a color let me know maybe I can help you figure it out.

I’ve never really sat down and counted the amount of cars that I have done in my 10 years in the automotive reconditioning business so theres been a lot of colors fly in front of my face, the only one that has ever kicked my butt was teal, wow I spent all day when I first started on a boat seat that was teal, holy crap, that was back when I used the lacquer based systems, bad move, I had to give up. With the water based it is so much better. I found with the water based mix that green, blue and a touch of white, I got it, I think I added a little yellow too, I try not to do to many teals, that color and me just don’t get along.

Thats kinda the way I look at it when I go to mixing colors, which I do all by eye, God help me if I go color blind. I just look at the work and see the colors. It’s pretty cool. Each and every car is different no matter if they are the same identical vehicles, each one as been exposed to completely different elements. Every color is different I promise you, premixed dyes are fine to get you there quicker, but check a spot first before you go hog wild and just start dyeing. So tint your dyes, tweak them until they disappear. The color wheel does help, I find myself every once in a while having a brain fart and can’t get a color right so I pull out the old stand by, if it’s the color your trying to get rid of use it’s opposite to get rid of it. Look on the wheel and the color on the opposite side of the wheel, thats it’s opposite. I know that’s not the correct word for that but it sounds good. But I never start my repair until my color matching is right. If you don’t think you can match it, don’t do it. The customer will respect you more for your honesty. If your color doesn’t match then the ending result won’t be perfect, and that’s what the customer wants is perfection in leather repair, or any repair…Right.

Make sure to apply your conditioner after your repair is done on your leather repairs. It will make your ending result look and feel better. Top coat all your repairs with a clear topcoat, it only adds more resistance to the wear and tear and abuse that the vehicles will encounter instead of just the dye.

If you have anything to add to this article I would love to hear from you, these tips can be used with all your color matching needs not just dyeing leather. So please jump on board and lets help all the techs out there and lend a helping hand so that we can ALL get one more step closer to perfection in our leather and vinyl repairs, plastic repairs, velour repairs, and carpet dyeing.

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.

So, with that said I’m going to give you what I call the “quick fix”. A temporary fix to get you by until the car is sold or you get enough money to do it right. Now I’m not going to give you some substandard way of fixing your leather seat, remember I do this for a living and from time to time I have been asked to do the “quick fix” to get someone by. Although I don’t like doing that for the people I do work for. To me thats my name and reputation that is on that repair, but when someones in a pinch you got to help them out.

This is a seat in a 2003 Ford F-350 from a customer of mine that I fixed. If your seat looks like this it’s not gonna take much to make it look a lot better then that.

Supplies…. you will need some stuff before you start this project and most of them you can get from your automotive paint store.

• Denatured alcohol – used for prep
• sandpaper – used for prep and sanding of cracks in leather 240 grit and 400 grit a couple of sheets of each will be good.
• 1 aerosol can of Sem Plastic and Leather Prep - if not available not really necessary but nice to have. helps to open the pores of the leather to help the adhesion of the dye.
• 1 aerosol can of Sem Classic Coat or Sem Sure Coat leather dyes (if you get the sure coat, it’s waterborne and is a lot more flexible and more like the finish already on the leather and will not dry the leather out). But most auto stores only carry the Classic Coat which will work, just don’t load the dye on, the more chance for it crack later. Now take the vehicle with you or something to match the color, if you ask the guys at the auto paint store they can probably find the right color for you.
• A sealer of some sort is needed to seal the raw leather before you dye it but not always necessary. If available Thompson Water Seal will work, or a leather sealer like Leather Tac this will help the dye adhere to the raw leather and help to smooth out some of the rough leather. Another trick is glue, but it needs to be a flexible glue and one that does not contain silicone. If you can get leather glue from your local craft store that would be perfect. Glue will seal the leather and lay down the rough leather.
• 1 can of a plastic adhesion promoter, I like Bulldog easy to use and it works
• terry cloth towels
• paper towels
• soft scrub brush
• Scotch Brite pad – green one is fine
• latex gloves
• hair dryer – helps speed things up a little

Clean the seat thoroughly before you start. Mix a small amount of mild soap ( Dawn dish soap ) and warm water in a small bucket. Dip your scrub brush in the solution of cleaner and scrub the seat from top to bottom, making sure to get down in all the crevices of the seat, wipe the seat clean with the terry cloth towel. Now take the Scotch Brite pad and dip it in the solution and scrub the seat again, this time scrub in small circular motions, this step not only finalizes the cleaning process it also scuffs the dye on the seat to give the new dye something to adhere to. In some instance dye will come up when this step is done, don’t worry because your going to dye it anyway. Wipe the seat clean with a towel. Next, wipe the seat down with the denatured alcohol on a paper towel, while the alcohol is wet wipe behind it with a clean paper towel, to remove all the goo and silicon that will keep the dye from sticking to the seat,

Once you have cleaned the seat thoroughly, it’s time to work on the cracked or worn area. Take a strip of your 240 grit sand paper and dip in the cleaning solution and wet sand the area where the cracks are, you will see the dye start to lift and move around while you are sanding this is a good thing, move that dye into the cracks and use it as a filler. Wipe the area with your towel and see if the area is smoother, in cases where there are cracks is where I use leather fillers to fill in the cracks, but this is the “quick fix”. Now dry the area with a hair dryer if available. Getting the cracked area as smooth as you can get it will help to hide the worn area and make your repair look better.

Now if you the Sems Leather Prep use it now, follow the directions on the back, pretty simple, wipe on wipe off. If the area is still a little rough use the glue with your figure and rub it onto the rough area and smooth it out, let dry and sand it smooth. Seal the area if you can by wiping the sealer with a paper towel on the area.

Time to dye. Use a small piece of cardboard to use as a blocking card for the over spray. You will have some over spray so cover the areas with an old sheet, like the console and seat belts. Spray the seat with the dye holding the can 12 to 18 inches from the seat, using short swooping burst, don’t just start spraying away. Spray light coats, letting them dry between (use the hair dryer). You can sand between coats, if there are still some rough areas. In some cases if the cracks aren’t filling in, you can spray a heavier coat over the cracked area and rub it into the cracks with you hand. Two to three coats of dye should be sufficient. Spray the whole face of the seat to blend the color and make it look more uniform, remember short bursts and light coats. Now hopefully at this point you should be seeing a good looking seat.

This is what your seat should look when your done, granted I am a professional and I use all of the top of the line products, so yours may not look this good but it should be close.

Let dry for a few hours before you drive, but be careful, only sit on them if you have to. Optimal drying time is 8-10 hours for the dye to cure out totally.

The last step is to condition, I can’t stress this enough. Leather needs to be conditioned to keep it soft and flexible. There are several types of conditioners that are great to use, one I recommend to all my customers is Lexol, it’s created by a company that deals in just leather products. Just pick a good one and make sure you put it on, it will finish your job and make your seats feel and look great.

Hopefully this helps you in you leather repair adventure. If you have any questions about your leather repairs don’t hesitate to contact me, there are so many different situations that have so many different ways to fix them. It’s really hard to put it all in one article. So join my forum or email me with your questions on how to fix cracked leather.