Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Shaun_Ashmore on August 01, 2008, 10:50:35 pm
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No problem,
Re dyed by mine and Mike Halliday's fair hands!
Shaun
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I recognise that workshop Shaun ....................looks an excellent result . How long did it take ?
robert m
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3 of us 5 hours in total, with coffee and a sandwich and loads of rattling.
I think we all agreed it could be done with 1 person in 5 hours though, an average price for this work should be in the range of £600 so I don't think they will be many takers with the amount of cheap anilines going to flood the market.
Learning how to do this is 2 fold, 1 is that you know how to do it and 2 is that you know when to do it (from a customer/business point of view) no point of selling this service to an Argos suite, you need to look for the better quality suites.
Shaun
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Thats not a venue in north yorksire by any chance is it Shaun?
Good result is it quite easy once the colours are matched. I believe there is good money in this type of work but you have to take the suite away from the customers premises.
Mark
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Mark
Colour mixing is simple on this type of leather (not like pigment).
What was the customers reaction to the finished result.
Good to see you both
Cheers
LTT
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Reaction...........................oiyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy where's my suite, did you wreck it and have to buy a new one ?
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Shaun well impressed have you got any better photos
Thanks John
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Talk us through what you did please :P
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Dave, i've deleted my last sarcastic reply ( just in case you read it) I confused you with someone else ;)
carefully inspected the leather, washed it down, colour matched the dye ( got it wrong, so did it again) 'sponged' on the dye, let it dry then put on a second coat, then inspected it and applied a 3rd coat to some areas, then applied a final coat of protection cream
this is a very simple explanation.
mike
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VERY INPRESSIVE!
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Judy, help me get around a little problem here.....
You recolour a piece of furniture as described in this case... someone sits on it in a white skirt/trousers.... are they going to be walking round with a slightly brown bum afterwards?
Is the colouring product 100% fast? I can't get the thought out of my mind that something like this may be prone to rubbing off!
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No problem with this Jim.
Once the product is dry it is completely safe and will not come off on clothing. In this case no finish was applied but this is also an option if you want to apply it.
The only thing that happens is that this fades again in the way the furniture did in the first place. This process can be slowed down by using Ultra Protect which has a UV inhibitor.
Hope this helps
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Thanks. What difference would it make if a finish was applied? Visually, the hand of the leather, its resilience to staining/cracking, that sort of thing
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Jim
As this is a dyeing process as opposed to a pigmenting (painting) process the product once applied cannot rub off as it is not sitting on the surface. It also cannot crack because it is not a surface colour but has redyed the leather.
Adding a light finish (not PU) will make very little difference to the feel of the leather but will provide a more resistant surface. Applying the aniline dye goes a long way to resist absorbency and adding a finish will help increase this effect, with the addition of Ultra Protect you have a much more serviceable finish (probably more than when it was new). The effect of all of these things will depend on the properties of the original leather
Hope this helps
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Had a great day at LTT and with Mike Halliday. Dyeing this kind of leather is not an exact science unlike pigmented it is a bit like a woman 'it does what it wants' ;D absorbancy can be different on each panel of leather as each panel can be from a different cow but that's why people buy aniline leathers for the natural 'leather look'.
Thanks again Mike, Judy and Andy I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Shaun
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this suite looked better when we had finished than when it was new, it had a 'worn in' expensive look to it.
the customer was happy to pay me £400 without any idea what it was going to look like (only that it was going to look better) if I had renovated one of the scatter cushions and shown her the result I think I could have upped the price to £500ish. its easy money and not many carpet cleaners can do it so its worth learning.
its a very easy to do, it's just a bit time comsuming, if you are going to do them in the customers home you will need to totally dustsheet the room.
it used £40ish of dye.
mike
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The amount of product is a bit unpredictible. If the leather is very dry then it will absorb more product and therefore will use more and it also depends how much colour you need to get back into the leather (very faded areas will require more coatings).
This particular suite (2 + 3 str) used just under 1L aniline dye but sometimes it could be between 2 and 3.
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What brand of dye product do you use?
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Very impressed
Why not use spray gunn?
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It needs to go into the leather not sit on it like pigmented so you apply it with lint free cloths and rub the dye in rather than around and the leather absorbs it in and further coates usually need to be applied later.
Shaun
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We use our own brand Aniline Dye system.
You do not spray aniline dye as it is a product that needs to be absorbed by the leather. If you spray it on it will tend to sit on the surface (as the surface tension of the product is not broken) and wil then have a tendency to coat the surface rather than dye the leather. The product is not designed for surface coating as it has little wear resistance and if left on the surface will tend to come off on clothing etc.
Hope this helps
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Mike were they suitably impressed or was there a grunt when 'he' gave you the money?
Shaun
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Do you need to be careful not too put too much dye on?
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Mike was putting it on heavy than me but you just rub it in like you would rub suntan oil in, and it does go in aswell.
Shaun
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I see, so you can see the effect straight away or do you let it dry first?
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Shaun, they were well chuffed and gladly paid up :) :)
its hard to put too much dye on because its a applied with a small cloth so you can only put so much dye on the cloth, its like Shaun said it like applying fake tan ( and looks the same ;) ;) )
each coat is allowed to dry, you see a result straight away but the colour does deepen as it dries and keeps deepening over time.
mike
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It is difficult to apply too much dye. Once the leather does not absorb any more dye it tends to swim about on the surface and then you would not apply any more.
The colour will deepen with each coat you apply and does get richer as it dries. If the leather has faded very dramatically (almost white) you may have problems getting enough colour in with just the dye and we would then add more by using a Tinted Finish (Satin Gloss with a colour in it) to try to build up more colour - we did not do this in this case but it is an additonal option.
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Be interested to know how Mike plans to market this new service.
I know you mentioned before you don't have websites and get all your CC work from flyers, but this is a limited specialist market, just interested how you will get the work.
Thanks
Paul
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Mike & Shaun
That suite has really come up good.
Just before you (Mike) was organising that, Roger Peach (Doctor Carpet) passed a client onto me.
An L shaped settee but cushions a different colour to the main frame but still aniline.
After talking to Judy I quoted between £200 - £250 but the client pulled out - said he would get new settee for that. Would have been a bargain cause it was a big L shape.
Shame - I can see now how good it would have looked and I am sure he would have been happy - as your customer is, and of course I would have had the benefit of doing it.
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Joe call them and ask if they are throwing it out, me and you could have a go at it as a project ;)
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Kinder
This is not a new service, it's how you deal with a particular finish on leather. Aniline can't be cleaned in the same way thay pigmented would be cleaned and this is how you deal with Analine.
If you clean / repair / restore / leather, this is an example of Analine restoration and you would have it on your site, or you would show photos to prospects, when calling to inspect.
robert m
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Joe it's down to the customer and what they see as value for money, if it's a cheap suite then of course they aren't going to go for it, this one wasn't.
As for restoration well it is but you are limited to what invisible repair work you can do to it compaired to pigmented.
Shaun
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Paul ( Kinder)
I won't actively market it, if they come along I will do them. I've been asked about 3 in the last year.
I took this suite to LTT for a number of reasons, 1) I wanted to help out the customer, they either had it 'cleaned' or they were getting rid of it and 2) sounds corny but I do like to increase my knowledge of our industry it makes me a better carpet & upholstery cleaner :D
while restoring this suite I had the opportunity to talk with both Shaun & Andy and learn other things about leather repair & recolouring, (Andy gave us a quick lesson in colour repair)
doing it like this really is the best way to learn......... just the 2 of us, with Andy Hitting us over the head with a piece of 2X4 screaming MORE PRODUCT!!... MORE PRODUCT!!,
you can't get that sort of personal attention sat in a class of 12 ;D ;D