Hi all!
I'm new to the community here and new to leather work/restoration in general. I got a very soft old Perry Ellis lambskin black leather jacket which needed to be redyed. After some research I chose Fiebings pro dye black for the job. The re-dye went okay and I've also conditioned with Bick 4 but now I need to make sure there's no rub-off before I start wearing it.
Plan A was to just buff it until there's no more rub-off but I've done a ton already and there's no end in sight, plus the leather is old and delicate and it seems like it may not hold up to much more vigorous buffing.
Plan B, which may seem like the obvious choice to more experienced people, is to apply a sealing acrylic finish. I was resistant to this because the leather is super soft and seems pretty delicate and I worry that putting a layer of acrylic over it would ruin it. Also I feel like the gloss of an acrylic finish might not look too good on this surface (though I know diluting it can help on that front).
I don't see any way around it so I'm planning to apply some Fiebings Resolene diluted with water to 50/50, or if it would work, I might even try diluting it further to more like 1:2 for a more matte finish.
My questions are:
1. Is the acrylic topcoat the right/only way to go? Can a soft old lambskin jacket like this hold up to that? Or is there another/better option?
2. Can Resolene work at lower concentrations for a more matte finish or do I need to stick to 50/50
3. Bonus kind of unrelated question: that wrinkly collar is a little annoying, is there anything I can do about that?
Thanks so much in advance!
P.s. I know I may have over-applied the dye and there could be other things I could do differently in the future to avoid this problem, but I'm mainly just interested in how to proceed from where I'm at. Thank you!
