Refinishing motorcycle seat

[SmilinJim]

Before the great crash of 07 I had asked a question about refinishing motorcycle leather. I have a project to refinish a seat, one of those 'Oh yeah, I can do that' things. I've already sewn the places needing it and other minor repairs. It's had a lot of wear but is still in good shape. What should be my steps? I had thought that it should be cleaned and conditioned with Lexol then redyed, black of course. No trouble matching colors if I redo the whole seat. What would be the best dye to use? The tandy eco dyes, tandy prodyes or oil dyes or ___ . Please help me fill in the blank. This could lead to a bit of other work for quite a few guys and maybe just be worth my while to learn refinishing techniques.

Any help will be appreciated.

Keep on Smilin

Jim

[David]

Jim,

My guess is that you are going to get a lot of differing opinions on this one. I'll go for the Tandy Pro Dye. I think the oil dye tends to crock way too much. Regardless of oil or pro (spirit) I'd add at least one coat of neat Lac when done.

My plan of attack,

Saddle soap

Deglazer

Neatsfoot/lexol wait at least a day

dye

Neat Lac

Dave

[Beaverslayer]

Jim, my thinking on this, is that the seat should be recovered in new leather. Rather than spending the time and money on repairing an ols worn out seat by sewing patches that will make a weak spot on the seat, and trying to match the dye, hoping that there will be no crocking in the future, is just not as wise to me as recovering in new leather.

If it's just a black leather seat, then all you would need to do is use a thick chap or garmenbt hide to recover it with, and in the long run youd get a much better result.

Ken