WHY YOU HAVE “CRACKS” IN YOUR LEATHER
If you’re saying there are “cracks in your leather”, then the first thing you need to do is condition the leather with Soffener Leather Conditioner. Here is what’s causing those “cracks” in your leather, and how you can fix them.
The interior layer of the leather is made up of omni-directional fibers. These fibers hold residual oil and moisture. Over time, this residual oil and moisture evaporates through the pores of the leather. As the leather hide loses moisture, it begins to shrink and stiffen. This leaves a miniscule gap between the leather hide and the color coating on top of it. The color coating is no longer supported by the hide. Without proper support, it starts to crack. The cracking you see on your seats starts in the color coating. Without treatment, the cracks can become severe enough deepen into the hide. Before you apply the Surflex Dye to restore worn or abraded color, and in order to diminish the cracking, you first have to condition the leather using the Soffener Leather Conditioner. Soffener has more natural oils than other conditioners and is formulated to absorb deep into the leather hide. With its natural moisture restored, the re-hydrated hide can once again give proper support to the color coating.
If your leather is very dry, it may take several applications of the Soffener Leather Conditioner to restore enough moisture to the leather hide so that it can again provide the support needed to the color coating to prevent further cracking. Also, the edges of the cracks have (microscopically) lifted off the surface of the leather. After you have applied the Soffener Leather Conditioner, you can use 400 or 600 grit sandpaper to go LIGHTLY over the cracks to smooth the lifted edges. This technique usually does not affect either the color or the grain pattern of the leather – however, it is important that you test this technique first in an area that doesn’t show to make sure it will not affect either on your leather. You can repeat this condition/lightly sand process until the leather has absorbed as much of the Soffener as it needs and the cracks have been minimized as much as possible. Then you can use Surflex Dye to restore color to the leather surface.
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DrCactus
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