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Archive for the ‘6. Leather Tips’ Category
What is the best way to clean leather furniture? Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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n general, leather surfaces need only be wiped with a damp cloth to remove dust or grime.
However, because of other environmental factors like home heating and cooling systems, and sunlight, most leather also requires moisture to keep it from cracking, flaking or splitting.
Along with checking your smoke detector batteries during your bi-annual Spring-forward/Fall-back routine, take a sparing amount of saddle soap and moist sponge, and lather up your leather upholstery. Once the soap has dried, buff the leather with a soft, dry cloth.
Alternatively, a few drops of Castile soap in a quart of tepid water, applied with a damp sponge or cloth, works well too. If you want a specially formulated cleaning product visit Lexol or Apple Brand; and for tougher issues visit DYO Chemical.
View Types of leather and Care & Maintenance to learn more about the types of upholstery leather you’re specifying (full-grain, top-grain, aniline, and nubuck), and how to go about maintaining it.
Which way does your croc run? Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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mbossing is a creative way to develop unique upholstery leather for your client. But there’s a couple of things you should know.
Firstly, as a matter of standard practice, most (not all) embossings are made on half-hides measuring about 25+ square feet. The reason is that a lot of the leather industry’s machinery goes back to the day when embossing was primarily for apparel (e.g. belts, hand-bags).
The implication is simply that if your upholsterer requires very large cut sizes – perhaps for big wall panels, large banquettes, or oversized sectionals — you may want to see if options are available to emboss on whole hides. If they are, be prepared to pay more. There’s more hand-eye coordination required, which means more time producing the end-product.
Secondly, find out which way the embossing pattern runs. As just mentioned, a bunch of embossing plates were originally developed for apparel, so the pattern repeats may not run in the direction you need. This is analogous to fabric whereby you think about railroading, etc.
All of Groove’s embossing patterns listed on the web site were developed for upholstery leather.
1:18 Thursday, January 15th, 2009
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hen specifying leather, the COM to COL ratio is 1:18 (i.e., 1 yard of fabric measuring 36”x54” = 18 square feet of leather).
True the math isn’t precise because 1 yard equals 1944 square inches or 13.5 square feet. But because leather is irregular in shape the industry adds a waste factor.
Click here to view some examples for quickly estimating how many square feet you’ll need for a particular piece of furniture. Always, check with your upholsterer/ manufacturer for specific requirements.
Color and leather Monday, January 5th, 2009
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esigner’s are critical about color, so remember a few things when specifying a custom colored leather.
Start the process properly by specifying the light source that you’ll be viewing the strike-off under. If you’re specifying COL for an office, it might be best to consider fluorescent lighting; daylight for marine or aircraft, and incandescent for the home. When you receive the strike-off make sure you view it under the same lighting source that you requested; and remember that what you lay the strike-off on can influence the color you’re evaluating.
Also consider that top-coatings used to protect your leather may give the final product a slight color cast or a dull/shiny appearance. These factors are controllable during the production process.
By the way… when specifying a natural aniline dyed leather remember that every cowhide absorbs dyes differently. There could be color variations within a hide and/or across a dye lot. This, of course, is the beauty of an aniline dyed leather, but make sure you educate your client so there are no surprises.
Leather Thickness Conversion Chart Sunday, September 28th, 2008
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ver have a rep talk to you about leather weights (e.g. 2 ounces) or thickness? Well take a look at this handy guide Leather Thickness Conversion Chart to see how these terms relate to one another.
