Leather Mask Painting with Rub 'n Restore™ Unconventional Uses for Rub 'n Restore Resolved, Master the Mind, End the Monday Madness! Honoring Ancestors or An Excuse for More Stocking Stuffers Subcribe to Our Blog on October 25, 2016 Bonded leather (also known as faux leather, blended leather, composite leather, recycled leather, reconstituted leather, or ultraleather) is a dirty word in our business. Every day we receive multiple emails and phone calls asking the same question, "Can I repair my peeling, flaking leather?"The short answer is no. Generally, it's not worth the effort and money, especially when you look at the scope of the damage, like this picture from headline “news”. More details in the long answer below or scroll down to the last picture for our solution to this quandary. Bonded leather is a synthetic made of petroleum goo and ground scrap leather. The surface will flake off or peel after extended use or exposure to sun, revealing the woven mesh, fabric, or microfiber substrate.
There is no regulation for use of the term “leather” in the United States and Canada. The Chinese lobbies carry too much weight in these countries, contrary to places like New Zealand, where it is illegal to mislead consumers into buying the real thing. Bonded leather can't compete with marine-grade vinyl let alone genuine animal hide, yet it is more common than its authentic counterpart. It is all you'll find at big box stores, and it is the affordable (read cheap) option at many furniture retailers. Faux leather furniture looks great, but it probably won't age well.High-quality furniture, on the other hand, will have good “bones” and “skin”—genuine leather—and will cost $5,000 or more when purchased new.To properly repair faux leather, you'd begin by applying a repair compound like our FC1 Soft Filler to create a new vinyl-like surface. This creates water repellency and reflects light similarly to the original material. Dyeing the repair is the final step (or perhaps a coat of Clear Prep+Finish™ for more luster).
However, any new coating on an already unstable surface will add more weight, accelerate wear, and ultimately suffer the same fate. We have had several customers skip the repair compound and just use our colored dyes and Clear Prep+Finish™ to create a more uniform appearance. That being said, Rub 'n Restore™ products are not designed for fabrics and may slightly stiffen these materials.If you suffer from the bonded leather blues, we recommend shopping Craigslist or garage sales for some good skin and bones needing only a little facelift. We like aniline leather.Aniline leather is genuine and has a more natural and absorbent finish. You can often get aniline furniture for a song—just a couple hundred bucks—because of unsightly body oil or water stains that are impossible to clean. Professionals charge upward of $1,200 to extract the oil, seal, stain the leather, and they're often using solvent-based or elastomeric coatings (more about this here). Most people don't know genuine leather can be easily dyed with our unique product!
Spend another $50-$100 on some Rub ’n Restore™, and you’ll have that luxurious furniture for which you’ve been lusting. It will probably last you 20 years, and your bonded leather blues will be only a memory!Leather and vinyl repair kits include tints for color matching damaged material. Fake leather has a look reminiscent of true leather at far lower cost, but with the lower cost comes lower quality, meaning the material wears a lot quicker than true leather. When fake leather begins to peel and crack, a vinyl and leather repair kit with included tints allows you to make a repair that closely matches the shade of the material. Mix It Up The first part of making the repair is mixing up a color that matches the fake leather. Scoop some of the repair substance into the empty container included in the leather repair kit, then add bits of the included tints needed to match the project's color as closely as possible. Fix It Up To repair the peeling areas, apply the tinted repair substance over the damage using the spatula tool included in the repair kit.
Feather some of the color out beyond the damage to help it blend in to the surrounding area. Heat up an iron to medium heat or as recommended on the repair kit, then place the leather graining paper grain-side down over the repair. Iron the back of the paper to heat-set the repair solution and give it a leather-like texture. References Organize Your Stuff Now: Repairing Leather and Faux Leather Furniture Photo Credits George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images Suggest a CorrectionMinor damage on genuine leather (not synthetics) can be easily repaired with sandpaper and super glue! This leather furniture repair method is exceptional for cat scratch damage! The results are better than those of many retail repair kits and are also less expensive. We developed this method over 30 years ago as Vinyl Ladies (professional leather and vinyl repair artisans) in the auto, RV, and aviation industries of Southern California. Larger holes and tears should be repaired using a flexible repair compound similar to that used for vinyl repair.
Click here to learn more. Be sure to check out our Get Started page to determine what method is best for your project! Print/Download FREE Leather Repair Instructions FLEXIBLE FILLER METHOD FOR LEATHER & VINYL Damage on any synthetic or holes and larger areas of damage on genuine leather should be repaired with a flexible heat-curing compound. Be sure to check out our Get Started page to determine what method is best for your project! We recommend FC-1 Soft Filler, which is water-based, non-toxic, easy to apply, cures with low heat (incandescent bulb or sunshine), and is also sandable. Rub 'n Restore™ products adhere well to this compound. Zoom ahead to minute 3:50 to see the FC1 Soft Filler demonstration and skip the subpatch process which is only required for holes and tears. Minute 7:40 shows the texturizing process. Print/Download FREE Leather/Vinyl Repair Instructions PEELING OR FLAKING LEATHER? If your surface is peeling or flaking, it could be caused by one of two things:
1) Your leather is a composite (also called bonded leather or renewed leather) made from scrap leather and mixed with man-made materials. Composites have a faux leather coating that is notorious for peeling or flaking, exposing a fabric substrate. Repairing and dyeing an unstable surface is likely to suffer the same fate and is often not worth the labor and money. Reupholstery or replacement is recommended. Real leather or heavy-duty vinyls will never behave in this way, so try to find structurally-sound pieces on Craiglist and then use Rub 'n Restore™ products to dye them the color you want. More info in our "Bonded Leather Blues" blog post. 2) Your surface was previously painted. You will notice that the original grain of the leather or vinyl remains, and it won't absorb water like a woven fabric. Before dyeing, you need to remove as much of the unstable coating as possible. Solvent-based coatings often flake away over time. Elastomeric coatings will tend to crack and then peel.