Painted seats and door cards to match

[Wobdog]

Body painter left seats out in sun and faded my new seats. As a fix had all the seats painted same color and as a bonus painted the door cards to match.

 

[Jellobmw]

Body painter left seats out in sun and faded my new seats. As a fix had all the seats painted same color and as a bonus painted the door cards to match.

Tell us about the paint you used

 

[stphers]

Very nice Probably a leather dye I just finished up a 71 2002ti full resto and installed 320 i recaro seats that I had to dye so I did all the door cards and the rear eats even with new rear seat covers It makes big difference when everything is in the same color and tone helps to hide minor scuff marks as well

Thanks, Rick

 

[Roman596061]

NICE WORK

 

[dang]

Very nice. I've died several seats and door cards over the years with good results. It's all about prep.

Dan

 

[Wobdog]

I had Rick’s Auto upholstery out of Gilroy do it. He used a water base paint custom mixed. He sprayed it on then sprayed a clear coat on

 

[dave v. in nc]

I know that you folks get a lot of sun out west, but I am astounded that the leather bleached out in what I'm guessing was not a long period of time...How long did it sit in the sun? If it was residential/interior spec leather, I would understand...
I currently have a swatch on the dash of my car, been there 6 months, to see if it would bleached out, as I was trying to see about longevity of color, cooking daily....as it was a residential, but "protected" hide, that I have access to for cheap...so far, no noticeable change in color....we'll see.

 

[Wobdog]

Ignoring my better judgement I left the front seats in my coupe when I left it off to be painted. I thought the job would be 3 months but after 5 months of the car being left outside during the day this is what the seats look like. They were covered with plastic to keep clean but you can see how much they faded in these pictures comparing to the back seats that I stored in my garage and the front seats that were exposed to sun

 

[dave v. in nc]

Yep, the medium rare rears look tastier than the fronts...

 

[nosmonkey]

Yep, the medium rare rears look tastier than the fronts...

Medium rare? That's blue, barely cooked!

 

[Blinkling]

Thank you for sharing this. Great results.

I found replacement rear seats for my car and their leather is pretty hard.

Question to the forum: should I give them the Leatherique treatment first and then dye them? Or will the dye have a difficult time sticking to the freshly treated leather?

 

[rsporsche]

FYI. There are 2 basic product types to refinish leather. There are dyes that absorb into leather and paint type dyes that sit on the surface and don’t really absorb into pores / surface of leather. For instance leatherique is an absorbing product.

 

[tdgray]

Yes, and while both will fade over time. Dyes that absorb will be more durable and take significant more time to fade.

There are a lot of “paints” out there. Some absorb slightly while others are just surface sitters. SEM makes a great line of products that are flexible paints for interior. Nice for not concours restorations or someone that is on a budget.

 

[dang]

Question to the forum: should I give them the Leatherique treatment first and then dye them? Or will the dye have a difficult time sticking to the freshly treated leather?

A friend that has been doing leather upholstery for years told me to clean/scrub the leather with something mild like Woolite, then go over it with rubbing alcohol before using dye. I've done seats by hand with a small rag, taking four to five coats to get it uniform, or using a rag or small brush to get the seams and hard to get areas before spraying dye. He does the latter. Both ways came out good for me.

Dan