How To Guide Restoring and recolouring leather insert door cards

[mrscalex]

I've been looking for a pair of Chameleon leather door cards for a while and took the opportunity to buy a pair recently which looked solid enough but had a very poor door handle repair carried out on the driver side.

They were also going to need recolouring from Topaz Blue to Black.

Close-ups of that horrible repair. Very, very hard glue not just in the immediate area of the handle fixing point but smeared carelessly all around it too.

I had no real idea of whether I was going to be successful in cleaning the glue off. But I figure it was so hard I stood a chance of chipping/flicking it off with a scalpel at the risk of removing the top layer of leather or hopefully just the dye/sealant.

So with great care and 3 hours later I arrived at this. Note the leather has also been well but carefully (as the embossing can get removed) rubbed down with Furniture Clinic Leather Prep. This not only prepared the leather for recolouring but removed the smeared glue too. Phew...

The door handle was also carefully chipped away at. This had also been covered in glue around the edge.

Attention then turned to the plastic trim strip. I had more difficulty with this and although I came close to cleaning it up I couldn't get rid of the smears and small traces with the Leather Prep like I did on the leather inserts. So I finished off with 1000 grade scotch pad. And in fairness I was close to leaving it there. But in stronger light the loss of sheen to the area in question would have noticed.

So I tried out some TRG Super Colour Black leather/plastic/vinyl spray. I'd heard good things about it. Firstly rubbing the whole strip down with the 1000 scotch pad.

First coat very speckly. Firstly because any spray paint looks like that after a mist coat. Secondly the paint is meant to have a slight texture.

And then built up over 5 coats to this. It's good but I'm disappointed it's picked up some dust but probably more importantly it looks too glossy. It's supposed to be satin. Here it is compared with an original. I've emailed the supplier to see what I can do to tone it down. They do a matt refinishing lacquer but that may be too flat

At the moment I'm going to give it 7/10. The Furniture Clinic leather dye by comparison I rate 9.5/10.

More updates to come when I recolour the leather. And re-assemble the door.

 

[mrscalex]

Looking at it again I think in fairness the paint is satin. It's certainly not full gloss.

My mistake was in assuming the original was satin. It does have a very slight sheen but it's closer to matt than it is to satin.

I might just leave it as it is. I think matt would look too flat.

 

[g8jka]

I'd do the other side so they both match if the difference annoys you. I think it's the textured look that makes it look different to the other side?

 

[mrscalex]

I've recoloured and sealed the inserts now.

You start off with a wash coat applied by hand with a sponge. With the Black dye this coat is very solid. But it isn't normally and you have to avoid deliberately making it so as it usually means you've put too much on and may see application marks through the sprayed coats.

I've done Tanin Red over Beige. And Topaz Blue over Black before. Both look pretty weedy after the wash coat which as above is the more normal scheme of things.

Then we start with the sprayed coats applying a minimal amount in swift passes. This is much easier than spraying paint onto external panels or I should say getting a good result is much easier!

This is the first sprayed coat.

And here we are another 2 coats later. No set number of colour coats. You just put on as many as you need.

The dye drys to a glossy finish but we aren't finished there.

We now need to seal the dye. Officially Furniture Clinic call the product used for this first stage 'Super-Seal' and you need to apply 3 coats. In fact this is just gloss 'Leather Finish'. This leaves a very gloss effect.

Furniture Clinic produce gloss, semi-gloss, satin, semi-matt and matt. But in reality everything is a mix of differing amounts of gloss and matt.

The pure gloss sealer is the toughest coating which is why Furniture Clinic want you to put this on first. And they produce it with the name 'Super-Seal' to try and make the process simpler to understand and distinguish this stage from the final effect stage which is next.

I want to get as close to factory finish as I can. So I'm going to try different mixes for this final stage until I get there.

So I start off with 75% gloss and 25% matt (semi-gloss). And put 2 coats on. It's a lot better but still too shiny.

So I try a 50:50 mix which is satin. This nails it and I put a total of 3 coats on. It may look quite matt in the photo but it has a noticeable sheen in the flesh.

It compares well with a factory original door card finish. I'm happy

So there we are. Re-finishing completed on leather inserts and plastic trim strips.

I'll update again when it's all put back together.

 

[Jjim]

Great job there The finish on the leather looks amazing.

Can I ask how you are putting the door cards back together? As aren't they held together with plastic melted lugs?

 

[mrscalex]

Great job there The finish on the leather looks amazing.

Can I ask how you are putting the door cards back together? As aren't they held together with plastic melted lugs?

Interesting question. When I'm restoring old 1960s Scalextric cars (mrscalex...) there is a similar system. It's called a heat stake. Because of the type of plastic used on the Scalextric car I can manipulate the old part off (like a bumper) and leave enough plastic on the shell to re-melt the heat stake when the replacement bumper goes on.

You can't do that with the type of heat stake on Z3 door cards. So I believe the accepted practice is to use a hot glue gun. That's certainly what I'll be trying.

 

[Sean d]

Interesting question. When I'm restoring old 1960s Scalextric cars (mrscalex...) there is a similar system. It's called a heat stake. Because of the type of plastic used on the Scalextric car I can manipulate the old part off (like a bumper) and leave enough plastic on the shell to re-melt the heat stake when the replacement bumper goes on.

You can't do that with the type of heat stake on Z3 door cards. So I believe the accepted practice is to use a hot glue gun. That's certainly what I'll be trying.

Hot gun works well Robert, I did my last set with one, I also used screws into the that are left in the stumps.