Texturing

A place to ask and answer technical questions about repair and restoration
Morgs777
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:55 pm

Texturing

Postby Morgs777 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 10:14 pm

New to the group . Been doing car interior repairs for 13 years now so I’m Fairly experienced. Say you are doing a leather repair on a heavy grained seat like a merc or bmw . If it’s a really new car it needs to be almost invisible. I hate spraying W2 as adomizing it hurts my throat( I’m allergic ) and it jams up the spray gun easy. It also is hard to get a big pebble enough to hide repair and by the time I do it looks now different from surrounding leather. Using an iron is hit or miss from my experience ( I have limited with iron on leather) and I was taught it damages the leather. How do you return grain to your leather repairs ? Any tips or products.

jmurray2112
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Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:59 pm
Location: Anderson, CA, USA
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Re: Texturing

Postby jmurray2112 » Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:32 pm

Welcome to the forum.
I can only offer my experience with re-graining repairs. I agree that you have to have lungs of steel to use a mouth atomizer, though some people swear by them. Not me. I'm also not a fan of hot-graining, as the only time I've gotten a decent grain transfer using a grain mat was when I could put a hard surface behind the repair, and press down after heating it. Not something that you can typically can do with repairs in the field.
The tool I use is a Badger 250 airbrush. It's a pain in the ass to use, but when it works, it works really well. You have to modify it out of the box. You need teflon tape on the nozzle threads, and you need to block the breather hole as well, so you can pressurize the jar. You also need to use a plastic jar, instead of the glass one that comes with the kit. I use a 2 oz jar, so I had to find a replacement supply pipe that was longer because the 2 oz jars are taller (you can cannibalize an ball-point ink pen, or you can get the right size plastic piping from a hobby store). You need a plastic jar so that you can squeeze it, forcing the spray grain up into the air stream.
It's the combination of air pressure, nozzle height on the airbrush, and the squeezing of the pot that help determine the droplet size that the airbrush delivers.
You can layer spray grain droplets by using a circular motion when spraying. They accumulate, and run together, creating a heavy accumulation. I find that when they are cured, and you then sand the tops off of the area applied, it represents as close to a heavy-grain leather as anything else I've tried.
It's late, and I probably haven't explained this as well as possible. Let me know if I can clarify anything.
Jason


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