Help Restoring Hd Police Solo Seat

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this. Would appreciate any advise.

I work at a custom motorcycle shop and I am on the path to custom seat building. To get my feet wet, a customer has dropped off what I believe to be an older police solo seat that has seen better days. He wants to keep as much of the original seat as possible. A metal object rested on it for many years and rusted onto the leather. Any advise for restoring the leather and is it possible to restore the original conchos as well? I know there are new seats out there this exact style but the customer is very partial to this particular seat and I would love to just bring a little life back into it.

[ConradPark]

My advice is to either take the seat to a furniture restorer or at least get in touch with such a store, they obviously specialize in this matter and often have special treatments to make old furniture leathers get a new life. They will probably advise you to use some kind of de-glazer to clean it up, sandpaper it even to smooth out bumps , using some kind of latex filler to smooth out any holes and cracks, use a re-conditioner to make the leather oily and soft again, airbrush in a new color (all these restorers can usually mix colors to exact shades an sell it in small 2 Oz amounts) and seal it with a lacquer.

I actually think the leather looks in pretty good condition, scraped and miss colored, yes, but no major cracks and the stitching seems fine.

From time to time I have taken up with re-holster old pub stools and the few times the owner wanted to 'bring it back' rather than to have a new cover I took them to my local furniture restorer. No shame in that.

If the Conchos are removable I think that cleaning them by electrolysis is the easiest method. I don't know how it works in Texas, but here in London most larger car shops can do that and some also do chroming or re-plating. Otherwise, I'm afraid that the only other option might be fine steel wool and elbow grease with metal polish!

Good Luck!

Edited May 12, 2015 by ConradPark

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Great advice, thank you.

Edited May 12, 2015 by LuckyRabbitsFootLeather

[Thor]

The above advice sounds pretty good. If you don't receive the information you need I suggest look into Morello colors and for the conchos, which is the easy part you can get a brass cleaner, just don't get it onto the leather.

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Hi everyone. I have finished the conchos. The customer did not want them to look brand new so I shined them up as best I could. The seat is going on a 1958 panhead and his focus is more on function than form, so no replating this time. The spear heads shined up well but still have fine scratches and I only had moderate success with the rectangles (keep in mind they are roughly 50 years old). Not much of their nickel plating was left but I removed the tarnish with a small amount of Brasso and buffed them out with cigarette ash. I tried a red and also a white rouge on a buffing wheel to get the fine scratches out but it did no better then my dry cloth and some ash which I found to be safer because you can burn through too many layers very easily with the wheel.

[Art]

Get the dirt and rust off with a good soap, murphy's oil soap or the like. Let dry and then rub in Pecard's and let soak in for a day or two in a dry area, use a second coat if necessary and only if necessary. Let dry again for a couple of days. Buff up and see what you get. I've had Pecard's paste and/or Montana Pitchblend paste bring back zombie hides.

Art

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Get the dirt and rust off with a good soap, murphy's oil soap or the like. Let dry and then rub in Pecard's and let soak in for a day or two in a dry area, use a second coat if necessary and only if necessary. Let dry again for a couple of days. Buff up and see what you get. I've had Pecard's paste and/or Montana Pitchblend paste bring back zombie hides.

Art

Thank you Art. Should a deglazer be used before the soap? Also once Ive cleaned it up Id like to fill in some spots, dye and seal it. I am not sure at what point to condition it.

[Art]

Thank you Art. Should a deglazer be used before the soap? Also once Ive cleaned it up Id like to fill in some spots, dye and seal it. I am not sure at what point to condition it.

Ok, the first thing is to get the dirt and rust off, good scrubbing works, after it is good and clean, a deglazer may be used, a little judicious rubbing and plenty of deglazer can help some of this. After complete drying in low humidity, but keep out of the sun, you can use one coat of saddle oil, or Montana Pitchblend oil (MP without the Beeswax). It has to dry after this for a couple of days till the oil goes all the way into the leather. Pecard's also works here, one coat only and let it dry and absorb for two days in DRY place. The oiling will help it take the dye more evenly. Now do whatever repairs you think necessary, make sure you don't' do anything that won't take dye. I would completely re-dye by immersion in a 50/50 Dye/Denatured Ethyl Alcohol (wal-mart by the gallon) mix with Fiebings Royal Blue Oil Dye. After that, let the saddle dry. When dry (day or so) Dye it again using the mix of Fiebing's Black Oil Dye and Denatured Ethyl Alcohol. Fiebing's Dyes are pretty good, the more you put on, the darker they get. The alcohol helps the leather take-up the dye better but also dilutes the dye, which can be quite strong. When immersion dyeing, you can pull it out at any time, and if it isn't dark enough, you can put it back in. I generally rub the surface with a sponge wrapped in an old t-shirt to circulate fresh dye to the leather. Wear Gloves, the thicker ones from Harbor Freight are good. Each time after dyeing, when the leather is dry, go after it with a clean rag and a shoe brush (like used for buffing shoes) and get ALL of the residual dye off, it can be a problem later and it wouldn't even hurt to do it twice. Then buff it again. After all that alcohol (in the dye, not that glass of Wild Turkey you've been sippin' on) another coat of Pecard's is in order, and after it dries for a day, buff it up. This won't fix where the grain might have been ripped or scuffed, but it will all be sort of the same color and should look much better than it did originally.

This is what I do, and is my own method, your results may vary.

Art

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Youre on to me! Thank you. I'll post pics soon.

[LuckyRabbitsFootLeather]

Sorry for the wait. My products finally came in. I started with a soft cleaner but quickly realized that it wasn't going to cut it. I moved on to the super cleaner and with five hours of elbow grease got the seat to the point you see below. Since the rust was very stubborn I used a razor blade to lift it off the seat once it had softened from the cleaner. The magnified images show the rust right before I scraped it off.

Edited May 22, 2015 by LuckyRabbitsFootLeather