Advice needed on best way to repair these leather seats
There is no holes or anything just scuffed really any advise on what products to use and where to get them, I tried furniture clinic but they wanted to sell me 100 quids worth of stuff which in my eyes was far too expensive.
Well, to do a good job, you will need to spend £50 on a decent airbrush, plus £50 of leather paint, cleaner, prep pads, sealer.
I’ll do them for a tenner.
No, not really but I suspect that’s the answer you’re hoping for !
More helpfully, if you dig out a couple of old Wheeler Dealer or Tim/Fuzz shows (can’t remember the name), they often show leather repairs done with very fine sandpaper to open the grain, and then re-dyed/painted and they come up very well indeed.
Something like this may also help:
Duplicate due to slow site response.
Mazda “Leather” is not really leather in the way most people would understand it.Its a combination of leather particles and synthetic materials. I would clean this leather, and paint, not scrub back in the manner you would treat a full hide leather.
Thanks for the replies.
I have taken a cutting from under the seat itself and it is full leather Hide I think it’s the rear of the seats that’s not full leather.
The furniture clinic was the ones who quoted me around 100 quid for the gear.
I thought it was expensive but I’m now assuming it’s not bearing in mind I’ll be doing both seats.
A kit including custom mixed paint, cleaner, sealer and a cheapo airbrush, cost me £50 from Furniture Clinic. Had enough paint to do 4 seats. This kit comes with a thickened paint. If you order just the paint, you get a much thinner mix. The thick stuff can be sponged on, and with a bit of technique, you can get an acceptable finish. The trick is to build up layers, and use a hair dryer between layers (these are water based, so don’t dry quickly). The top sealer is essential, because the paint will just come off. By default, this is very glossy. You can tone this down, afterwards, with a satin sealer. You can’t use the satin sealer on top of the paint, because its not particularly hard wearing.
The cheap airbrush supplied is ok, but clogs. I ended up buying a better one.
Small kit is £50. You have priced for a large kit. Although they don’t list Mazda, they did mix for me the red for a S-Limited, and there is a code for that. I would be surprised if they haven’t actaully previously mixed Mazda tan. I met up with them at a NEC show, and they booked my swatch in there.
Warning; the filler sold by Gliptone and Furniture Clinic isn’t great, and will fall out. Ok for skimming scratches, but no good really if you are trying to fill holes. Trade probably likes it for cars being sold.
Before buying any of these kits, I would study the various videos. I think its best to remove the seats from the car, and completely dissemble them, rather than attempt to paint them insitu, and recolour in one piece. The seats have to be 100% clean, and the cleaning process is quite brutal, with a lot of stretching and kneading of the leather.
By no full hide, I mean the top coat is a polyurethane layer. This is why on modern car leathers, you can’t “feed” them, only clean them.
This the kit I used £34, I think you only need the cleaner and the dye, post more pics later, cheers Rob.
These are before
So there you go all DIY, seats left, in 4 coats of dye, used hairdryer, found it in the boot, the white paste to fill the cracks was decorators caulk the type you can paint over, put on with a credit card the hardest bit was to find the correct color dye, I went to the factory for the dye here in Chester four different Mazda Tan dye,s, my car is 1991 Eunos V Spec BRG and they had the very same sample and my car type on their card, Hope it helps you, Rob.
