Vintage leather care and coloring

[LuckyLuke]

My 63' still has a lot of original nice leather pieces left. Unfortunately they are dry and need re-coloring:

Any recommendations on this topic?

1. Do you know of any good dyes that work for vintage leather?
2. How would you recondition the leather to make it soft? (I heard that oil based products should not be used? What is the alternative?)

Thanks,

 

[Dave Russell]

"Fiebing's Leather Stain" works well for dye.

"Resolene", "Eagle One", "Lexol", saddle soap, or any one of many others works ok for conditioning.
D

 

[gblawson]

Leathertique has a complete line of cleaners, reconditioners, dyes, etc. Have used it on an MG TD and it did bring back some of the softness? Not sure if the dye is more a paint... have seen demos at car shows but not sure about the dye part. Any good leather supply store should have a complete line of Fiebings.

One thing to test... take a drop of water and put it on a corner of your leather...if it 'beads', nothing on the market will penetrate (its a lacquer based dye)... if it does penetrate, you can choose anything out there! German leather tend to be lacquer (bmw's anyway)... not sure about British! My leather had so many cracks it had to penetrate!!!!

https://www.leatherique.com/

 

[HEALEYJAG]

Have used colorplus.com for my Jags and Healys. They have great stuff for refurbishing, dyeing etc.

Pete

 

[steved033]

I'll second the color plus... the soffener stuff is GREAT!, I know a guy who used their re-dye kit, and loved it.

sjd