Comments on: Tear in leather couch...

Question: Tear in leather couch...

iphog — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:57:20 -0800

I have a small tear in my leather couch. It is about an inch long and on the top of a cushion. Any recommendations on fixing this myself?

By: stereo

stereo — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:17:47 -0800

Carefully applied superglue? It's used for living skin too, you can get it in small q-tips "liquit bandaids" at chemists'.

By: numinous

numinous — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:33:35 -0800

I have seen commercials for leather repair kits before, though I have never used them and thus cannot speak to their effectiveness. Perhaps someone here has tried such kits before, and can better assess them?

By: prophetsearcher

prophetsearcher — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:38:41 -0800

i just tried using one of those kits for a similar tear in my ottoman. the process took a while to figure out -- it consisted of stuffing the hole, mixing a matching color, applying the textured guaze, painting the surface, adding a plastic strip, and a whole lot of ironing.

in the end, i had a sort of goopy mess that didn't quite look right, though we all agreed it was better than the tear (and we didn't have to keep worrying about the tear getting bigger).

the color didn't match - it became lighter as it dried, but i colored over the patch with one of those wood-scratch-marker things that you can use to touch up nicks on wood, and that actually worked quite well to approximate the original color of the leather.

good luck.

By: donajo

donajo — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 14:02:51 -0800

Digs Magazine did a piece about how to repair a vinyl chair.

By: hortense

hortense — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:58:34 -0800

There is a super glue sold for leather

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:31:39 -0800

If you don't mind the Frankenstein look, you can do what I did with my old leather chair - used a nylon suture kit liberated from work, sewed it up and tied it off. It doesn't look all that bad, really, and it definitely kept the tear from getting any worse. This was done in 1999 and it is still holding fine.

Of course the chair in question was old and beat up to begin with. If you have a newer or better quality couch, you may want to contact a furniture repair shop nearby and ask if they can fix it. At least get a quote; it could be worth the cost of paying a pro just to make sure it doesn't end up looking strange.