I have recently done some traditional gilding onto a leather desktop, using egg-glaire and heated brass stamps. To get the gold to stick to the leather, I had to remove a waterproof coating from the leather. I tried various solvents, and metho did the best job to remove the coating. However, this has left uncoated leather where the gilding is, and it looks very matte and dull compared to the satin finish on the rest of the leather. I'm trying to find out what I can use replace the coating on the leather.
The leather was an upholstery leather, cow hide, veg tan, analine dyed, 1mm thick, italian tumbled leather. The shop I bought it from said it may have been a protein finish on the leather (whatever that is), but weren't really sure, and they don't sell leather finishes.
In my experimenting to remove the finish, turps did nothing, but alcohols (IPA and metho) were able to remove the coating enough to allow the gilding to work.
The photos aren't great, but you can see the dull patches where I've stripped it.
Any recommendations as to what I should use to restore the satin finish of the leather? I'm mainly interested in getting an even looking finish on the leather, and compatibility with whatever finish was originally on there. Some extra protection for the gilding is desirable but not necessary.
