Nubuck: Degreasing: How to Clean Very Soiled (Grease & Oil) Nubuck?

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http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/nubuckarm.jpg

Roger I received your products and now I have an ideal Nubuck Sofa to try them on. As you can see this is only the arm(zipper makes it removable). It is very soiled (oily, and worn, very dark). I would like to know which product and exactly how it should be used to clean and restore it. I will be doing this one myself, but I also train our entire staff, and the more thorough your explanations the better. I have also included the a close up of the soiled area, and of an area that gets no use.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/closeupsoil.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/closeupnormal.jpg
Thanks for all your help, I'm looking forward to performing magic.
Chet

[Roger Koh]

We are looking at aged darken perspiration, oils and grease on a nubuck.

And prolonged alkaline grease soiled damages through hydrolysis and oxidation may become more obvious after removal of this dark grease.

Yellowing is a common result of aged grease alkaline soiling of this sort.

However it can be rectified with d’Yellow6.7™.

Remember age sets spots and stains and may require repeats to degrease completely from within the thickness (average 1.5mm or about 18 to 20 sheets of newsprint) of the leather.

These are the sequence of steps to take:

1. Step 1: Dry soil removal with nubuckEraser5™ (circular motion avoiding scratches to bring out the “finger writing effect”).

Try it out and take some pictures before we move on to degreasing with d’Oil4.4™ > clean3.8™ > rinse3.0™ > fatliquor5.0™ (soak & dwell > dry & erase) > d’Yellow6.7 (option) > Inspect > leatherScent’S™.

Roger Koh
Leather Doctor® System

[chet]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/aftereraser.jpg

Roger this is after the eraser, although the picture looks much better, the leather is still very soiled and oily feeling.
ps.
I have all your products except dyellow. Send me some, and contact me for my credit card.

[Roger Koh]

Now for review of what you have done with the nubuckEraser5™ versus using the conventional nubuck cloth will be thing of the past, agree?

I can see the “finger writing effect” characteristically a nubuck, a good sign.

We may not need the d’Yellow6.7™ looking at the condition now!

OK! Let's proceed!

Step 2: This step is apply d’Oil4.4™ with a Poly® Brush or equivalent on the grease and oil surface only, agitate with nubuckBrush2™ and let dwell for about 10 to 15 minutes or longer. Extract with towel if possible!

Step 3: Spray the entire surface with d’Grease4.9™ agitates with nubuckBrush2™ and let dwell another 10 minutes or so. Extract with towel if possible!

Step 4: Spray soaks clean3.8™ entire surface agitate and extract with disposal absorbent towel (Kimberly Clark or equivalent) to remove all sticky residues.

Step 5: Spray soaks rinse3.0™ hand scud with a blunt curve object like a big spoon or a small plate then extract until towel shows clean of soil (destabilized dyestuffs from the alkaline perspiration stains may show, it’s OK). Repeat this steps on the soiled areas, bringing out the imbedded suspended oil or grease from the leather structure very thoroughly. Yes very thoroughly and as dry as possible with towel extraction, so we need not repeat when we do the inspection!

Step 6: You may want to spray relaxer3.3™ to increase the moisture level prior to fatliquor5.0™ (These will further relax the coarse breaks or creases).

Step 7: Spray fatliquor5.0™ while the leather is moist and brush it into the leather structure evenly spread out too! Soak it wet with no dripping by squeezing to note the moisture level of the leather structure.
Immediately wrap it up with a clear plastic sheet or cling wrapper and let it dwell for at least 4 hours to allow “dipole water movement” within the leather structure.
What you have been doing so far is that the protein leather fibrils is been acidified by the rinse3.0™ and relaxer3.3™ below the iso-electric point charging it cationic (+).
The fatliquor5.0™ is anionic (-), thus causing a hydrogen bonding between the fatliquor and the protein fiber.
When hydrogen bonding takes place the white milky fatliquor breaks, oil is bond to the fiber and the water part of the fatliquor breaks free and will wick out to the leather surface bring along the suspended foreign soil.

Step 8: After sufficient dwell time, remove the plastic sheet and let the leather dry naturally slowly drawing out the foreign soil to the surface.

Step 9: A quick under the sun drying and force drying at this stage will crystallized the foreign soil on the tip of the fine nap to be erase away.
This is the “Magical” moment you are looking for and is your camera ready!

You can show us some pictures along these steps.

Step 10: Evaluation & Inspection before either we go backward or forward.

Any questions so far?

Roger Koh
Leather Doctor® System

[chet]

Roger, Thanks for the reply, we should have time to work on the nubuck tomorrow.
When you say to extract with towel if possible, do you mean immeiately after agitating wiht Nubuck brush, or after the apropriate amount of dwell time?

[Roger Koh]

“Extract” after appropriate dwell time and “if possible” also means that as nubuck is so absorbent there is hardly any moisture to be extracted, instead I would spray and extract as mush soil with d’Grease4.9™ before I move on to clean3.8™ (otherwise I will be redistributing the release soil to other areas).

Roger Koh

[chet]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/Doil.jpg
Above applying D'Oil with sponge brush only to very soiled area

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/10-15-08028.jpg
Area that we used Doil on, extracted as best we cpould with towels

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/10-15-08021.jpg
The area we used DGrease on we slightly featered further than DOil area. Extracted with towels immediatly and again after 15 minute dwell time

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/Cleaner2.jpg
Cleaned entire panel, agitated with brush and extracted. We repeated several times

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/crust2.jpg
Rinsed, thoroughly, Scuded with plastic bondo blade, extracted with towels. We did this several times very thoroughly on the bad areas.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/Scud2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/Scud3.jpg

WE then used Relaxer over the entire area, and wiped off with towels
We then sprayed Fatliquor over entire area and agitated with brush and then covered with plastic.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/crust2.jpg
Brushing off the dried crust, the leather looks and feels awesome where it was not very soiled, However it feels stiff where it was very soiled.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/insp1.jpg
Inpection after bruching off the dried crust

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/insp5.jpg
Closeup of finished leather

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/scar.jpg
The soiled area looks slightly different, and is stiffer, however the lightly soiled area looks and feels great except the natural scars became very noticable.

[Roger Koh]

Can you elaborate on “looks slightly different” (Is it lighter in color, darker, texture change?).

Stiffer can be improve by “staking” with a blunt object or kneading with knuckles or fist!

If that fails to improve suggest that fatliquoring was not sufficient (note excess fatliquoring deepens the color tone and softer the leather too).

If you think that appearance need improvement I suggest as follows:

Step 1: Spray clean3.8™ only to areas that you think embedded soil has not been fully removed through the wicking process, agitate and extract.

Step 2: Feather out rinse3.0 through the entire cushion and wet it out again.

Step 3: Airbrush, Yes use an airbrush and detailed onto the stiffer areas and feather out.

Step 4: Cover up 4 hours, leave natural dry 4 hours or overnight depending on temperature and humidity level.

Step 5: Force dry or under sunlight to cause a film of residual soil wicking onto the surface.

Step 6: Use nubuckEraser5™ and erase using the smooth side.

Step 7: Soften leather structure by “staking” (with a blunt object, massaging or kneading with knuckles or fist)!

What do you think?

Roger Koh
Leather Doctor® System

[chet]

It looks lighter in the area that was very soiled. I think your suggestion to reclean is the place to start and adding more fat liquore. I will try to soften it in an areas first.

[Roger Koh]

Well if it is already clean to your satisfaction, there is no need to re-clean!

Do you have these particular pictures of concern?

Instead airbrush directly and feather-out.

See this picture: - Airbrushing to deepen color to match adjacent panel will meet your objective of color toning with softness.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn4/Rogerkoh/PhotoInBox1628.jpg

Roger Koh
Leather Doctor® System

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airbrushing with leather scent s ?

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Roger, we have air brushed leather scent(s) and agitated it in with nubuck brush. We then used hair drier and rebrushed. It looks very good. However there are two areas that concern me. the first one is near the edge, where the cushion folds over the arm, so I"m sure it's where the oil and soil were the worst. the other area is where the elbow would have rested, there are a few shiny areas there also. Iwant to know if it's possible to make it look even better (D'oil or d'grease in those two areas? and feather it out?). Roger, I only want it to look new.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/leatherscents.jpg
Over all picture after leather scent (s) It looks great compared to where we started, it's hard to see but the left side edge and the very center are where I still have a concern.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/oilyresidue.jpg
Left side edge, minor oily residue, slightly shiny?

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/oilyresidue2.jpg
Center area near folds still have slight soil or oily residue, slightly shiny appearance.

[Roger Koh]

The above airbrushing is refer to “fatliquor” to deepen the color tone and softening the leather.

Those areas that need better appearance repeat what you have done before: d’Oil4.4™ > d’Grease4.9™ > clean3.8™ > rinse3.0™ > fatliquor5.0™.

leatherScent’S™ (airbrushing) is done after the overall appearance and softness is achieved with satisfaction.

Let us know how you have improved your concern on those oily residue and shiny appearance!

Roger Koh
Leather Doctor® System

[chet]

Roger, I think the results are awesome, however; I do have a few concerns left they are pictured below. Along with the last picture which is the finished cushion.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/oilyresidue2.jpg
Shiny Oily residue in center of cushion where elbow must rest, near creases.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/oilyresidue.jpg
Shiny oily residue near edge of arm

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f289/Chet50/leatherscents.jpg
Finished cushion

[Roger Koh]

Have you done any spot cleaning to these two areas yet?