Anyone with leather dying experience?

[UpstateMike]

Looking for suggestions. I have cardinal red leather interior and I am looking to dye the seats as a temporary fix until I get a set of new seat covers. Anyone do this before?

[Cletonius]

I've not personally done it but have heard good things about the leatherique kits.

[AlexHale]

Just to help, emailed leathrique and they have said the dye, red in my case too, will work on the vinyl side panels if you have some left over from the seats.

[Semblance]

I had good luck with leatherique, black though. i found that i barely needed any sanding, and too much will make the leather un-naturally smooth and the dye will feel a little stiff and plastic. I went through a LOT of rejuvenator and cleaner, but not very much dye or prep. Maybe because i have black seats.

[AndrewBird]

FYI, leatherique is NOT a dye, it is a paint. It does not soak into the leather but merely coats the top of it. This is why it also works on vinyl as well. Dye would never work on vinyl because vinyl can't absorb liquid since it is essentially plastic.

Here is some info I wrote up a while back:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=2370490&postcount=11

[bmwstephen]

FYI, leatherique is NOT a dye, it is a paint. It does not soak into the leather but merely coats the top of it. This is why it also works on vinyl as well. Dye would never work on vinyl because vinyl can't absorb liquid since it is essentially plastic.

Here is some info I wrote up a while back:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/show...0&postcount=11

do you have any recommendations on the type of sealer? Even the factory leather would tend to have a urethane sealant. Otherwise the dye would rub off the minute you sit on it no?

[AndrewBird]

Fiebing's makes several different sealers:

http://www.fiebing.com/catalogue/top-finishes/

[UpstateMike]

Thank you guys for the ideas. Hopefully diff perspectives will continue to get posted.

[jeffnhiscars]

I'm in the middle of a leatherique refinish and I would say there are pros and cons to the different products mentioned. While dye sounds ideal in principle, its very much like wood stain in that you have to thoroughly remove all of the old finish to get it to take. With enough preparation you should get great results.

In stripping my seats I realized the factory finish is thick and definitely sits on the surface so the Leatherique seems to be similar to that. I also tried applying some rejuvenator after stripping the finish and it disappears in to the leather quite quickly on a hot day with the windows up as opposed to when I treated the seats with the original finish and the stuff sat on the surface for hours. Based on that I decided to remove as much finish as I can without pulling the seats and to give them a series of rejuvenator treatments before I get around to dying them. George, at Leatherique suggests a couple of doses/week for a ,month before you refinish to help soften the leather.

The bonus is that I still have my seats to use while I progress slowly :-)

[UpstateMike]

Thanks Jeff