by Lily S

Created on: July 23, 2010

If you have a rip or tear in your leather jacket, getting it fixed by a leather specialist can be expensive. However, you can now purchase do it yourself leather repair kits - the most popular being the Leather Repair Kit by Leather Magic, which is available from Amazon.com, for about $26. The kit comes complete with cleaning swabs, patches, adhesive, palette knife, and repair compounds in various colours. They also provide a step by step guide and they have a technical support line you can call if you are having problems.

Once you have the kit, clean the area around the rip gently using the alcohol cleaning swab that is provided. You can also use regular rubbing alcohol to clean the area if you want. Important: you must test the cleaning alcohol on a small patch first, because it sometimes removes colour from some leather jackets (depending on the strength of colour fastness of the jacket).

The rip then needs to be secured with one of the sub-patches that comes included in the kit.  Insert the sub-patch under the rip in between the leather and the lining. Use the adhesive to secure the sub-patch to the leather, ensuring that you have closed the edges of the rip as far as possible. Then let it dry. 

You will now have sealed off the rip, but the line of the rip will still be visible on the surface. To deal with this, you need to mix the repair compound in a colour that matches your jacket (the kit comes with nine different colours in small pots, which you can mix and match as appropriate). Use the colour guide they provide to help you mix the compound to get an exact match. Test the colour on a small patch of the jacket that is not visible, to check that you have got the shade right.

Next, spread the repair compound over the entire surface smoothly, using the palette knife, and allow it to dry for several hours. You may need more than one coat - apply as necessary and let it dry completely between coats. Once you have finished and it is perfectly dry, apply the leather conditioner included in the kit, and voila, you should have a leather jacket restored to it's former condition. Note that repairing a rip in a leather jacket will take some time and patience, due to the amount of time you need to allow the adhesive and repair compounds to dry, but it is worth the time and effort.

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