Automotive Interior Repair with The Interior Guy

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!!!

It’s been a roller coaster of a time here in the Automotive Interior Repair business here in Missouri. The weather here as been ruthless! One day it’s snowing, the next it’s warm enough to actually get some stuff done, then right back to the freezer we go. Business is really good though, it’s been hard keeping up with the weather but at least the work is there and I have that to definitely thankful for.

Well today I wanted to give you guys a little tip on getting a grain pattern into you next leather or vinyl repair using the “Wet Grain Method“. This little trick can be used with just about any air dry or heat cured compound on leather or vinyl and really could probably be used on plastic but never really tried it yet.

This process has saved me a couple of times and has enhanced some of my repairs and made them basically disappear. It’s kinda a last resort to getting it right. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

This is gonna be kinda a quick post today. Sorry for the lapse in info lately I’ve had other duties to attend to lately and haven’t had a lot of time to write. But I did want to throw a little info out to all of the automotive interior repair professionals. This little trick gives you a pretty good grain pattern when done correctly. I call this “The Reverse Grain“.

This graining technique is actually pretty easy and gives you a light grain on a leather repair when a little more hide factor is needed. Read the rest of this entry »

Your as good as the products you use…Have you been searching for the right automotive interior products to get the job done right the first time? I know I have. I have been in the automotive interior repair business for a long time and have used a lot of different interior products in my repairs. I have used different water based dyes and leather repair compounds from different suppliers with so many different results, some good and some really bad. I have over the years learned one thing and that is your only as good as what products you use. If the products you use to do a repair fail then you fail. It doesn’t matter if it looked good when you left, it has to last. Why would someone call you back to do another repair for them if the job you did before didn’t last or looked like your kids did it. Well they wouldn’t. You have to have the top of the line products that you can stand behind and for lack of better words, guarantee. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever had one of those days when it seems as if you were running in circles and tripping over everything, well today was my day. Man what a day, things went smoothly with my repairs, thank God, but I couldn’t hold on to anything and every time I turned around I was either bumping into something (like the edge of doors, ouch!) or tripping over my cords and hoses. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

You left the car window down or the sunroof open and there’s a water stain in your car’s leather seat….or your girlfriend spilled here red wine in your leather car seat on a night out on the town….or your kids decided they were a soon to be artist and tried their techniques out on your leather car seat with a pen, arrggg. Got kids myself, so feel your pain. Stain removal in leather seats can be tough, heres a few tricks to help get you going. Read the rest of this entry »

This is definitely not a quick fix or a temporary fix that I’m going to talk about today. This is the way that I repair leather on a daily basis that has been worn or cracked.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many different types of automotive leather seat repair, all with different situations and applications. There are holes, scratches, gouges, cuts, scrapes, worn or cracked, and just down right grungy looking leather seats. I think I got them all covered, well in this article we’re going to talk about how to repair a small hole in a leather seat lean back, for those of you who don’t know what a lean back is well it’s the upper part of the seat.

Now when I say small this can apply for a tear up to 1 1/2″ to 2″, probably might go a little bigger, but lets not push it, if it needs to go to the upholstery shop for an insert then that would be better then a crappy looking leather repair on something that probably wouldn’t hold anyways. When in doubt, insert it. Read the rest of this entry »