Leather Colorant Repair: PA, NJ, DE, MD

**swanicyouth** · 06-09-2014, 10:31 PM

I'm looking for a professional (I pay you) who is skilled in matching / re coloring a section of auto leather for a permanent repair. No rips - just color. Please PM me if you know anyone who does first class work.

**swanicyouth** · 06-10-2014, 11:35 AM

Ok. Well, I guess nobody currently on AGO does this. So, I got off my but and found a local guy who will do this work. I will use this thread to document. I have no idea if the guy is good or not - but via a phone conversation he seems to know what he is talking about. Will post more about this and before and after when he does the work.

Place is called Seatfixerz

I'm having them fix the wear on the bolster on my BMW. I've tried to fix it, but I guess I'm too picky for the results I'm getting. Black is not black. The problem I'm having DIYing it is getting the black color and sheen to match.

I have no eye for art or color. I've have black and white dye, and prepping and dying the area isn't an issue. Getting the repair to last isn't an issue. The issue is mixing the two to get an undetectable repair. The black is always too light or too dark - or just not the right sheen.

After talking to the leather guy, he brought up exactly what I suspected. That a lot of blacks have hues of greens and blues in them. So, you sort of have to be an artist or have some kind of color key to match it perfectly.

This is what I'm talking about...

Not too bad from this angle:

But from this angle under lighting you can see it's not too good:

So, when all else fails - consult a professional.

While I was at it, since I'm a perfectionist (sort of)... Ordered me up a new on of these:

Old one was showing some wear.

**swanicyouth** · 06-14-2014, 03:00 PM

Well, went and saw leather man today and put on my new shift nob.

First, previous repair (bolster):

New repair:

It looks pretty good. I'd give it an 8 out of 10. The big black dark spot is gone. Leather man told me the leather in that area was porous so in order to make it 100% perfect he would have to remove the colorant from the adjacent panels and blend it - which I didn't want to do.

Tomorrow I'll coat it with CarPro F & L. Repair only cost $85. I'm pretty happy.

Old shift nob:

New:

PS... Leather guy says he uses 88 different shades of black - so no wonder my amateurish attempt didn't look as good. When in doubt - call a pro.