Understanding Your
Leather Upholstery

Now here's something that may surprise you . . . before leather gets to the dying and finishing stages, it's colour is light blue! In fact, in the tannery, they refer to it as 'wet blue'. The 'blue 'is the result of preservatives and 'wet' because in most of the processing the leather is saturated.

It's important to realise that the finish of your leather upholstery. . . or the colour . . . is a very thin film over the top of the leather.

Now, this film is sprayed on. . . rather like paint on your car.

Most people think that leather upholstery has a solid colour all the way through and they are usually horrified when they find out that the colour is actually sprayed on!

Yes, it's true that leather is dyed right through in the tanning, but that doesn't give it a solid colour . . . it's only a stain.

The stain is usually a related colour to what the finished colour will be.

For example, if the finish is to be dark blue, the leather will first be dyed blue.

Why Is Upholstery Leather Dyed?

There are 2 main reasons for dyeing the leather:

• When an upholsterer stitches the leather together, the needle doesn't expose a clashing colour in the stitching holes.
• It acts like a primer colour. This means that because the leather is stained to a related colour, the tanner doesn't need to apply as many colour coats to get coverage. You only have to bump or scratch your leather to realise how thin the finish really is.

If your upholstery leather is more than 20 years old, you may notice that the dye colour may not be related to the finish colour.

In fact, I've seen black leather with a green or blue dye base and . . . red leather with a tan dye base.

This is because, in the "olden days" the tannery had a very small range of dyes available, so they would use dye that was closest to the finish colour.

Today, however, with all the technological advances, the colour range for dying leather has hugely increased.

What Is The Leather Finish
And How Is It Applied?

In the tannery, the finish is applied in several different stages.

First, a powerful clear bonding sealer is wiped over the leather. This is a combination of resins and cross linkers.

The reason this is applied is to provide maximum adhesion to the leather. You could say that this works on the same principle as primer works with car paint.

Once the sealer has dried, the colour is then sprayed on. Now the colour is a combination of water based, urethane and acrylic resins with pigment added.

The urethane gives the finish its hard wearing abilities whereas the acrylic, gives it softness. Usually, 6 or 7 coats are sprayed on.

Once dry, a clear sealer is then sprayed on . . . usually 2 coats . . to give the leather good physical properties.

This is either a solvent based or . . . with the environmental issues now being considered . . . a high performance water based sealer. After the first coat, the final coat has waxes and silicones added to give the leather its 'feel'.

Have you come across new leather that felt waxy or slippery? Well, that's because of the additives in the final seal coat.

The Different Types Of Finishes
On Leather Upholstery

Fully Pigmented Leather

This is the most hard wearing and most popular of all the leather finishes.

It consists of several coats of colour and sealer.

Antique Leather

The antique effect is achieved by first apply several coats of a base colour such as bright red or light brown.

A fine coat of a darker colour is sprayed over the top giving the leather a 2-tone mottled effect. The darker colour is very thin so the base colour can still show through. A sealer coat completes the process.

Wyper Leather

The wyper process is similar to antique except that the darker colour is wiped off using a special solvent, leaving the darker colour in the grain.

The wiping is usually done AFTER the furniture is made and produces a semi-worn effect which is very popular on deep buttoned, rolled arm suites. Again, a clear sealer completes the process.

Leather Upholstery
Has The Ability To Breathe

One of the great features of leather is its ability to feel warm in winter and cool in summer. This is because the finish used on upholstery leather is micro-porous.

This means that if you put it under a microscope, you would see tiny pores in the finish. This gives the leather the ability to breath.

So you could say that leather is not completely sealed. If it was, it would be like vinyl . . . and you know how cold and sticky that can get!

So if your leather is looking worn, discoloured, faded, or stained, the chances are the finish is damaged or worn.

The good news is, your leather can easily be restored to its colour, look, performance and feel.