[Shaun_Ashmore]

No problem,

Re dyed by mine and Mike Halliday's fair hands!

Shaun

[carlton care]

I recognise that workshop Shaun ....................looks an excellent result . How long did it take ?

robert m

[Shaun_Ashmore]

3 of us 5 hours in total, with coffee and a sandwich and loads of rattling.

I think we all agreed it could be done with 1 person in 5 hours though, an average price for this work should be in the range of £600 so I don't think they will be many takers with the amount of cheap anilines going to flood the market.

Learning how to do this is 2 fold, 1 is that you know how to do it and 2 is that you know when to do it (from a customer/business point of view) no point of selling this service to an Argos suite, you need to look for the better quality suites.

Shaun

[markpowell]

Thats not a venue in north yorksire by any chance is it Shaun?
Good result is it quite easy once the colours are matched. I believe there is good money in this type of work but you have to take the suite away from the customers premises.
Mark

[LTT Leathercare]

Mark
Colour mixing is simple on this type of leather (not like pigment).

What was the customers reaction to the finished result.

Good to see you both
Cheers
LTT

[carlton care]

Reaction...........................oiyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy where's my suite, did you wreck it and have to buy a new one ?

[John Gregory]

Shaun well impressed have you got any better photos 

Thanks   John   

[davep]

Talk us through what you did please 

[Mike Halliday]

Dave, i've deleted my last sarcastic reply ( just in case you read it) I confused you with someone else

carefully inspected the leather, washed it down, colour matched the dye ( got it wrong, so did it again) 'sponged' on the dye, let it dry then put on a second coat, then inspected it and applied a 3rd coat to some areas, then applied a final coat of protection cream

this is a very simple explanation.

mike

[Mr Dvae]

VERY INPRESSIVE!

[Jim_77]

Judy, help me get around a little problem here.....

You recolour a piece of furniture as described in this case... someone sits on it in a white skirt/trousers.... are they going to be walking round with a slightly brown bum afterwards?

Is the colouring product 100% fast?  I can't get the thought out of my mind that something like this may be prone to rubbing off!

[LTT Leathercare]

No problem with this Jim. 

Once the product is dry it is completely safe and will not come off on clothing.  In this case no finish was applied but this is also an option if you want to apply it.

The only thing that happens is that this fades again in the way the furniture did in the first place.  This process can be slowed down by using Ultra Protect which has a UV inhibitor.

Hope this helps

[Jim_77]

Thanks.  What difference would it make if a finish was applied?  Visually, the hand of the leather, its resilience to staining/cracking, that sort of thing

[LTT Leathercare]

Jim

As this is a dyeing process as opposed to a pigmenting (painting) process the product once applied cannot rub off as it is not sitting on the surface.  It also cannot crack because it is not a surface colour but has redyed the leather.

Adding a light finish (not PU) will make very little difference to the feel of the leather but will provide a more resistant surface.  Applying the aniline dye goes a long way to resist absorbency and adding a finish will help increase this effect, with the addition of Ultra Protect you have a much more serviceable finish (probably more than when it was new). The effect of all of these things will depend on the properties of the original leather

Hope this helps

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Had a great day at LTT and with Mike Halliday. Dyeing this kind of leather is not an exact science unlike pigmented it is a bit like a woman 'it does what it wants' absorbancy can be different on each panel of leather as each panel can be from a different cow but that's why people buy aniline leathers for the natural 'leather look'.

Thanks again Mike, Judy and Andy I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Shaun

[Mike Halliday]

this suite looked better when we had finished than when it was new, it had a 'worn in' expensive look to it.

the customer was happy to pay me £400 without any idea what it was going to look like (only that it was going to look better) if I had renovated one of the scatter cushions and shown her the result I think I could have upped the price to £500ish. its easy money and not many carpet cleaners can do it so its worth learning.

its a very easy to do, it's just a bit time comsuming, if you are going to do them in the customers home you will need to totally dustsheet the room. 

it used £40ish of dye.



mike

[LTT Leathercare]

The amount of product is a bit unpredictible.  If the leather is very dry then it will absorb more product and therefore will use more and it also depends how much colour you need to get back into the leather (very faded areas will require more coatings). 
This particular suite (2 + 3 str) used just under 1L aniline dye but sometimes it could be between 2 and 3.

[Jonny F]

 What brand of dye product do you use?

[Ian Gourlay]

Very impressed

Why not use spray gunn?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

It needs to go into the leather not sit on it like pigmented so you apply it with lint free cloths and rub the dye in rather than around and the leather absorbs it in and further coates usually need to be applied later.

Shaun