How I fixed / hide my recliners foot rest

[kgg]

One of my recliners is fabric and the foot rest material wore out and looked terrible. I could have stripped it down to the board but if I reupholstered it with fabric it would eventually wear out and it would be a one of. So I finally decided on making a simple functional leather veg tan sleeve that could be reused on another recliner at some point in the future. I used:

i) 3 oz natural colored vegan tan

ii) Fiebings Pro Dye in British Tan

iii) Udderly Smooth (cream consistency )

iv) Mink Oil (paste consistency )

v) 1" Velcro

vi) V138 thread

vii) copper rivets

viii) 1inch "D" rings

ix) 1" foam

x) LS-1341 clone cylinder arm

xi) heat gun

I would have poured the dye the leather by soaking it in a container but I didn't have one that was wide enough so I used flat plastic butter container and used paper towels to apply the dye directly by hand. I was surprised at how good the paper towels worked on a large surface of spreading the dye around. 

I hand rubbed Udder cream on after I dyed the veg tan when it was almost dry which did create a tan colored foam on the surface of the leather and left it to settle overnight. The next day I then wiped off the excess and applied the first heavy coat of Mink Oil paste letting that dry for about 12 hours before using a heat gun to force it down into the veg tan. I then let it sit overnight, re-applied another heavy coat of Mink Oil and hit it again with the heat gun to force some more into the leather. I then wipe the access oils off and did notice there wasn't any British Tan dye on the paper towels. Which I figure is good a thing as the British Tan sort of matches the color of the fabric but might not go great with white pants.

Any comments / suggestions are always appreciated.

kgg

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by kgg

[Gezzer]

Cool idea and very nicely done !!

[kgg]

2 minutes ago, Gezzer said:

Cool idea and very nicely done !!

Thank you. It's something simple and is going to be used a lot.

kgg

[fredk]

Nicely done

A nice bit of repair & improvement

[kgg]

4 hours ago, fredk said:

Nicely done

Thank you, I figure the leather sleeve will out last the recliner.

kgg

[Bert03241]

Nice repair job looks awesome. 1 thing if I may. I think I would have sewn the D rings and velcro

I think they will get a lot of pressure on them with you putting your feet up and down all the time and eventually I think the rivets might pull out. Just my thinking.

[kgg]

6 hours ago, Bert03241 said:

I think I would have sewn the D rings and velcro

Thank you. Good point I will keep an eye on that.

kgg