Learning how to restore leather is essential to ensure your repair is perfect

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• Professional Results
• Four Simple Easy Steps
• Luxurious Finish
• How To Restore Leather

The first stage

When starting your leather restoration project it’s best to clean the leather surface down of all dirt and debris.

Using a soft Tampico brush and a vacuum with a soft brush attachment gently vacuum the surface to remove all dirt and debris to avoid any un necessary abrasion taking place when you are proceeding with stage two.

Preparing the leather surface correctly for a professional restoration.

The most important part of any repair or restoration job is the preparation of the leather, if this is not done correctly, then your repair job will not last.

Preparing leather for restoration is best done with an red fine abrasive pad, inside the pad that is folded in half place a small amount of terry towel cloth, this is used to hold the leather prep while you rub the pad over the surface of the leather.

When you rub the abrasive pad over the surface this will help soften the leather and remove all the scratches and cracks in the leathers surface, those stress cracks that have gone into the leather can then have heavy filler applied to them and then sanded  down once dry.

This video is all about preparing leather for restoration, we have many videos on YouTube guiding you how to restore leather

Where some furniture has different type of leather like finished splits, proceed with caution as the leather prep could remove all the top grain structure, so only very lightly prepare this area, even if you don’t use your abrasive pad, you can just soak a terry towel in leather prep and go over the surface in this manner.

You have to leather prep everything to ensure all grease, grime, waxes, and silicone’s have been removed from the before applying any colourants. If these are not fully removed, then the leather colourant is not going to adhere to the freshly prepared leather surface to give a strong bond and will not last.

The third stage is to apply the leather colourant.

First of all, you will need to make sure your bottle is well mixed and shaken up, once this is done you can then start applying your colourant to the freshly prepared leather surface.

First of all, just wipe this on in a circular pattern to give an even coverage, don’t worry at this stage how it looks, as the next two coatings will ensure you arrive at the perfect finish.

With the first coating you have applied check all corners and piping areas and crease areas to make sure you have a good quality coverage applied to these. Then dry all of this with a hair drier this should only take a few minutes to dry as it’s only a thin coating.

Then you can proceed to apply two further coatings, this is done by dabbing the colour onto the surface almost like a stippling motion this will then give a nice even finish to the surface, in between each coating make sure you dry this thoroughly before applying the second coat.

You Can Spray The Colour On If You Wish.

Once the leather is fully dry from using the leather prep, you can start to apply the leather colourant to the leather surface, make sure you only apply nice thin coats. This will give a natural look and create a great bond to the surface.

It’s advised that you spray at approx. 12 inches away from the surface and at about 15psi.

Spraying in a nice even overlapping motion to make sure all the leather is covered, dry between each coating.

Don’t apply too many coats of colour or you will end up with a plastic look and feel to your leather, make sure you use the hair drier between layers to avoid colour build up that can cause runs to appear. If you do get a run dab over this with a sponge to even out the colourant.

The fourth and Final Stage ¦ Applying the Leather Sealing Finish.

Applying the sealing finish is done in exactly the same way as you applied the colourants. You can either sponge this on, being careful not to create a foam when applying this if this does happen you can use a hairdryer on speed one very gently go over the finish to get rid of the foam you have created.

If you have decided to apply the sealing finish with a spray gun apply two coats first of all of the desired finish, this does not have to be a matt base or a gloss base as this is just a waste of sealing finish and your money as the sealing finish will work applying the finish you require from the start.

if you wish to have a satin finish as most leather items are, just mix the gloss and the matt together in a 50/50 mix to gain satin and apply.

Apply two coats drying properly between each coating and once the second coating has been dried correctly lightly sand this down with 1200 grit paper to make way for a nice smooth silky finish, then apply the third coating and you have a nice fresh smooth silky finish to your leather that feels luxurious and soft. If you wanted to you can then polish this final finish once dry with 3000 grit paper to make it feel even more luxurious.

Apply Protection Cream

Now you have a nice new fresh finish to your leather we advise you now to apply some protection cream to help protect your leather further, to extend its life even further and to stop stains and spills attacking the new finish.