Rip Black Leather

Repair Scratches In Your Leather Couch

Frequently, the difference between an amateur repair and a professional repair is having access to professional supplies and knowing the tricks of the trade.  This is absolutely true in leather repair, where having the wrong supplies can result in making an absolute mess of your leather upholstery.  Home remedies like olive oil, milk, and shoe polish and saddle soap will eventually cause your leather to rot and smell.   Trying to match your furniture's color using the repair products available at Home Depot will make a scratch look worse, not better.  In this article I'll share with you where to find the right products to repair scuffs and scratches in your leather, and a few tips to give you the best results possible.

Step 1: Identify the Leather

Upholstery leather is identified by the type of finish that is applied when it is manufactured.  If the upholstery you are repairing is on indoor furniture, pick up a seat cushion and look for the tag with the cleaning code; this will identify the leather you will be working on .  The code will be A for Aniline leather, P for Protected leather, and N for Nubuck leather.  If you are repairing auto upholstery, the leather will always be P, Protected leather.  The repair techniques will be different for each type of leather.

Second, Identify the Damage

Leather is finished in a manner similar to wooden furniture: the unfinished material is stained or colored and then a top coat is applied.  A scuff is damage to the topcoat; no color is removed.  A scratch is damage that goes through the clear topcoat and the color coat and exposes the raw leather.  Cuts, burns, tears and rips are more serious damage and require more serious repair than scuffs and scratches; those repairs are beyond the scope of this article.

How to Repair Scuffs in Leather Upholstery

Soft, natural Aniline leathers are finished with wax.  Scuffs in wax are eliminated by redistributing the wax on the surface of the leather.  Warm the leather around the scuffed area with a hair dryer, and rub your hand back and forth over the scuffed area.  Use just enough heat to warm up the leather.

Most upholstery leather is P, or protected leather.  Protected leather is always painted; better quality leathers are dyed through and then painted, and then topped with a clear coat of water-based lacquer.  Scuffs occur when the clear lacquer top coat is damaged.  From time to time, scuffs can be polished out using a quality leather cream and a rag.  If that doesnt work, then the damaged are will have to be re-lacquered.  Re-apply the clear coat by lightly misting the scuffed area with clear nitrocellulose or acrylic lacquer, which can be purchased in a spray can at your local hardware store.  To make sure the sheen is correct test the spray in an inconspicuous place.  Spray in short bursts; do not soak the area.  Its best to apply the lacquer in thin layers.  Be sure the leather surface is clean and allow the lacquer to dry thoroughly between applications.

How to Repair Scratches in Leather Upholstery

Scratches are marks which have gone through the leathers' topcoat and removed color.  If color is removed, chances are you have protected leather; Aniline and Nubuck leathers are through-dyed and a scratch would not remove color.  To repair a scratch, it is necessary to replace the color.  If the color is not an exact match, there is a good chance that your repair will look worse than the original scratch  The only way to assure a perfect color match is with a custom-formulated, computerized color match.

The primary manufacturer of leather coloring products in the America is a company called SEM.  SEM paints are flexible and will not split and crack when used on a flexible surface.  Leather repair specialists often purchase SEM products online from Vinyl Pro of Western PA   http://www.vinylpro.com .  Vinyl Pro has the facilities to match your leather color; simply send them a swatch of your leather.  When you order your custom-matched color, have it delivered in an aerosol sprayer.

Where to Find a Leather Swatch

To find a swatch, flip your furniture upside down and pull part of the black dust cover from the bottom of the chair/sofa, or look under your car seat.  With a razor blade, cut a piece of leather from behind the staple line.  You'll need about one square inch of leather in order to match the color.

How to Make the Repair

Fortunately for leather repair technicians, cowhides are not perfect.  Cows get scratched by barbed wire, stung by bees and bitten by mosquitoes.  All of these will leave scars on a hide.  Its not necessary to match the grain on a simple scratch; re-coloring the damage will look natural enough.  Prior to coloring the scratch, trim any raised edges or loose bits of leather with a razor blade and sand lightly with 400 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper.  Clean the area well with denatured alcohol.  If the scratch is deep, use an artists brush or foam brush to dab some of the color into the scratch.  Wipe any excess paint from the edges with a Q-tip; be sure to get all of the excess paint from the grain.  Dry the paint with a hair dryer.   When you are satisfied that the scratch is adequately filled and the dabbed paint is dry, spray the area using the aerosol sprayer filled with your custom color.  Spray using short, quick, misting bursts, and feather the edges out slightly from the scratch.

With these few tricks of the trade and professional quality supplies, you will be able to make professional-looking repairs to your scratched and scuffed leather upholstery.

About the Author

Wayne Jordan is an antique and furniture restorer, auctioneer, and appraiser. He has refinished, restored, and cleaned leather-topped and upholstered furniture for over thirty years.  Visit his website at http://www.waynejordanauctions and his blog at http://www.wayne-jordan.blogspot.com

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