>>>1)what are the products needed to patch the holes on this chanel hand bag? Its a vintage and most likely lambskin.
Products required to patch such holes are Bond-3D, Bond-7A and Patch-4S.
Procedure is done in the sequence:
Tips:
Prior to the repairs it is best to clean and rejuvenate the leather for softness when dry with Hydrator-3.3 > Fatliquor-5.0.
1.] A slightly larger than the hole size is cut from Patch-4S.
2.] Insert the Patch-4S into the hole and bonded with the grain facing out.
3.] The edge is further filled with Bond-3D and work out to smoothen it seamlessly with Bond-7A.
4.] The natural lambskin vachetta color of the leather is then stains and coated with Aniline-21 to saturate and Aniline-76 to coat to level up the black intensity of the original color.
5.] When the desired color saturation is achieve, topcoat gloss Aniline-21G (gloss) will further match up the luster of this bag.
>>>2) what is the best way to identify the type of leather?
By Origin:
The origin of leather may come from all living being with skin and it may be animal, reptile, bird or fish.
The most common from animal is the bovine family, commonly known as cow.
Skins are identified from size and hair follicles.
A hair-on-hide may be easily identified example a Zebra, but you also have prints that look like tiger on cowhide.
Alligator and crocodile are the common reptile skin and easily identify by sight, same as snakeskin, like python by pattern of skin.
The common bird is from Ostrich with pattern of goose pimple.
Fish may be from shark or shagreen again by sight.
By Tanning Process:
There are numerous types of tanning and all produces leather.
These are identified easily by color from raw, when they are dye through it makes identification by color more tricky.
The texture of the leather will also tell the tanning types if there are of the same thickness. With Chrome-tanned the softest and the Vegetable-tanned the stiffest assuming they have the same percentage of fatliquoring on them.
By Finishes:
There are many reasons for finishes.
One of them is aesthetic.
When leather is used as unfinished, they are typical the brown type popularly known as “Vachetta” and the white type popularly made into baseball and high-end fashion bags.
The aniline dyed leather uses transparent dyestuff to allow the beauty of the skin to show through, an example would be the above Chanel lambskin bag.
Majority of the leather would use an opaque pigment to conceal the blemishes of the leather.
Nubuck and Suede are aniline dye through and may have a translucent finish to conceal some blemishes.
>>>Is vinyl the same as patent?
Vinyl is manmade from PVC.
Patent is leather with a high-gloss mirror-like finishes.
>>>I know there is patent leather. is there such thing as vinyl leather?
Vinyl leather is simulated leather or simply imitation leather.
Roger Koh
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