Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat

There are so many separate types of automotive leather seat repair, all with separate situations and applications. There are holes, scratches, gouges, cuts, scrapes, worn or cracked, and just down right grungy seeing leather seats. I think I got them all covered, well in this record we're going to talk about how to fix 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.

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Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat

Now when I say small this can apply for a tear up to 1 1/2" to 2", probably might go a dinky bigger, but lets not push it, if it needs to go to the cushion shop for an insert then that would be good then a crappy seeing leather fix on something that probably wouldn't hold anyways. When in doubt, insert it.

Car Seat

Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat

Prepping a seat is the key to success in any leather repair, and a chronic leather dye job. So, prep the whole lean back, and while your at it just clean the whole seat, why not, but you don't have to, with your prepping clarification removing all grease, dirt, and grime. You need a clean surface and a well prepped area to work with. When I prep, I use a clarification of rubbing alcohol, acetone, ammonia, and a small amount of Tsp substitute, with water in a spray bottle. Spray the seat with the clarification and scrub with a scotch brite pad to scuff the leather seat for leather dye adhesion and remove any grime that's on the seat, then wipe clean with a clean lint free towel. Once your clean, apply a grip base primer to the seat, I regularly in most cases will dye the whole lean back when I do a fix or the whole seat, but sometimes it's not necessary, so you may not need to prime the whole seat, but do clean the seat good this cuts down on the amount of leather dye used and the ending effect will be a premium leather repair.

Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat

Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat

Now to the hole. Lets say it's in a V shape, just for example. Like where you've gott'n out of the seat with something in your back pocket, ouch! I know the feeling, back in college I had a 1986 Mustang Svo, very rare and nice car (man I miss that car) and I got out to go to class with a pen in my back pocket and ripped about a 2" V shape in the seat, I about puked right there, and of procedure at the time I didn't know whatever about leather repair. But now I do and here it is.

Sand the area nearby the tear with a 240 grit sandpaper, this gives a dinky more for the low heat blend to grip to. Take a piece of underpatch material and slide the under patch under the tear with a pair of tweezers, allowing about a 1/2" on the inside all the way around. I regularly cut my patches in a circular shape, it makes it a dinky easier to slide under. You can use separate types of under patches, I like the kind that is coated on one side with a heat activated glue.

Now take a drop of leather glue and spread a thin coat on the patch on the underside of the leather fix area. If the leather will lay down smoothly and match up then great, but sometimes it just won't. In this case we will use combo of the glue and your low cure leather fix blend and level a small amount over the patch then lay the leather down. Spread a small amount of low heat blend over the area and level it out with your pallet knife, remembering to holding your area as small as possible, the smaller the better. Now heat the area with your heat gun, hold the heat gun out away from the leather fix and slowly move it into the fix area, this will give you just a dinky more operate of the heat, you don't want to burn and shrink the leather. The idea is to cure the blend and get it to adhere before you cook the leather, it's a skill thing, custom makes perfect. Once the blend is cured immediately press the grain pad in your palm onto the repair, don't press to hard, but firm.

At this time using a wet paper towel apply a small amount of grip base to the fix area and dye with your color matched water based leather dye. Dry thin coats of dye, not wet. Then reapply and level out other thin coat of compound. Heat again and grain then dye, get the idea, what you are doing is construction the fix up. Thin coats of blend applied and cured then reapplied, are much good then one thick coat. Once you have it built up and seeing nice, blend the fix into the rest of the seat if needed, by applying thin coats of leather dye to terminate it off. Drying between coats of dye with a hairdryer, and one great tip is rubbing the leather dye with your hands to force the dye into the creases of the leather helps a ton, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. I say that but I'm allergic to rubber gloves, it bites, so I come home every day with dye all over my hands, it's a pain, but I love the work and the job looks good with a dinky bit of love rubbed on those leather seat repairs. After the dye is cured, apply a top coat of satin or dull leather clear top coat mixed with a bit of slip additive added for the soft feel. Dry the seat thoroughly, then apply your leather conditioner to terminate and give the seat the juice it needs and a great feel and look for you.

Now there are so many other variations to this fix, sometimes I will have to use an air dry leather fix blend over the top of the low heat blend to level out the leather repair. Sanding it with a 400 grit sandpaper until it looks right. You can also turn your air down on your paint gun until dinky droplets are coming out to give it a textured look, drying between coats. Texture coatings, can be used, but if you do it right the gun effect works great. When I do a leather fix I won't give up until it looks perfect. Patience is a virtue, right. Don't get in a hurry, this will only frustrate you more and then you authentically got issues.

Leather fix is a craft and profession. The dyes and compounds I use are top ability and are made to last. Giving you a chronic leather seat repair, and ease knowing you have a leather fix that will last and look great for years to come.

I hope this was some help to you, in the coming months there will be more articles like this one but on separate situations on leather repair, liked I talked about in the first. There are so many separate ways that a leather seat can be damaged, we spend a lot of time in our cars and well "sh$$ happens", right. So check back to see my next record on automotive leather seat repairs. If you have whatever you would like to ask feel free to shoot me some comments on Leather fix - How To fix Torn Leather Seat.

Leather heal - How To heal Torn Leather Seat