Here is a cut from a repair I done with my Jeep seats using the Furniture Clinic stuff... hope it helps...
Now, we move onto the front seats, which after nearly 150k miles and 14 years of work, were starting to show their age...the girl I gave the Jeep to, was short, fat and loved wearing jeans, which didn’t help the drivers seat
...
This is what I had, and some of the areas I was trying to fix and to restore:
I have never done anything like this before, so it was all new (and scary) to me!
After a bit of research, I opted to go with the furniture clinic, and purchased their large restore kit and filler... and off to work I went, trying to follow their well written instructions to the letter...
1st stage is to clean the seats with a strong alcohol solution, just a wipe down, so far so good...
2nd stage, if the big b@ll one...the removal of the clear top coat... again done with solution...this is really the point of new return...and left the leather like this:
I think you can see how dull the seats are after everything was removed....another alcohol wipe down, just to be safe, and you can see the colour coming off the seats this time:
After this stage, I had the option to use the filler to repair some of the damage... For anyone that has used “polyfiller” for walls, I think it’s the exact same process....small amounts fill in the cracks, sand back, repeat as needed:
Please note that, IMO, I used WAY too much filler here, and after crying and getting annoyed with myself, spent a hour or so sanding it all back with low grades of sandpaper...please do not make the same mistake!
Anyway, after I had (somewhat) recovered the situation, and cleaned the leather again....it was onto the actual colour stage...The furniture Clinic do a colour match service, so I was happy that this would be OK...and it was!
First coat goes on with a sponge...trying to get into all the nooks, creases etc...
After that has dried in, again using my lights to help out in my ‘leather studio’, you move onto the next stage, and that is again colour, but using an airbrush to apply...
It was quite fun to do, but you need to be careful not to go overboard with the paint!
Once this has dried, there is only 2 stages to go, the spray on protection coat, and the last stage gloss/matt clear coat finish... I put on 2 coats of each, then let the seats dry out for 1 day before putting them back in the jeep...
This is how my seats turned out:
For a quick comparison on the driver’s side bolster:
Before:
And after:
And a final picture to show the passenger seat back in the Jeep:
For something that I was leaning, with nothing but hope and written instructions, I am happy with the outcome...not perfect due to using too much filler and maybe I little run from the final coats here and there...but it’s all trial and error for me...
