Thread: Leathercraft? Anyone know about repairs for art?

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My aunt bought a really cool antique wooden chair with a leather image of I think Poseidon attached.
The leatherwork I think is embossed (sticks out in 3D) and looks very good for being vintage, but the face of the guy is torn. Its like someone poked him in the face. popped his bubble face, lol.

So I have this crazy notion to try repairing this myself, but after 3 hours of research Im still pretty clueless on what supplies I need and how to attach the new face I want to make to the already applied image on the chair.

So far I *think* I need to do the following;

to buy-
scrap bit of leather (but what grade to choose? I need to dye it to match the aged leather or can this already be bought ?)

a tool to emboss the leather (push the leather when wet)

some kind of filler to make the face stick out from behind when I do the face details

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then the process-

wet the leather
push out an area I want to make the face on, an oval shape
fill back out with filler
emboss/tool the front into a face


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On a side note, I originally thought to-
buy a scrap bit of leather,
wet it,
and place it over a sculpted face, like I would be making a very tiny mask,

allow that to sit tight over the mold and dry,
possibly varnish/dye it,
then somehow attach the new face onto the piece on the chair (not sure how to blend the new face with original to be as seamless as possible.)

In addition to this, I was thinking of making a seat out of embossed leather in some nice design which I cant find to match yet.

So making a custom design to use in embossing would be the way I want to go(I can do this easy), just not sure how to make my own pattern usable for embossing.

I don't know anything about leather repair, but you might try getting a hold of someone who repairs saddles. Some saddles have alot of intricate embossed designs. They might be able to do it or know of someone who could.

I've bought tool leather in the past and it's some pretty thick stuff. I got it at a kind of leather craft store that is no longer in biz. If there is no such store near you you might try a shoe repair shop. At least they can tell you where to start.

Your correct in wetting it to get the emboss though I didn't do anything as intricate as this but your approach is solid. I got some good results using just Kiwi shoe polish in various colors. For aging you will find the black paste really doesn't get "black" even when you let it set very long, but would be good to let settle into the cracks and crevices to bring out the detail.

Good luck!

You may check the Necronomicon...oh wait....you said Leathercraft. Never mind. ;P