painting the leather

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Permalink Reply by Dave LeBlanc on November 24, 2009 at 4:54am

If the paint is in decent shape, do not strip it down to bare leather. A good scuff on sanding to break the glossy finish. Make sure you clean the paint well. A light coat of citrus strip might be the best choice, not to take all the paint off, but to clean the surface and provide a rough surface for the first coat of paint.

Leather helmets are soaked in boiling linseed oil and then allowed to dry. If you can leave that surface intact, you will be better off. That is why I would recommend not stripping it.

You may have trouble covering the red with white. I would try a section on the underside of the brim first, and see if you can cover the red without stripping the whole helmet. Your first coat should contain a mix of linseed oil and color. If you haven't stripped it down to leather or the primer coat then a mix of 2 paint:1 oil should be fine. This coat may stay a little tacky. Folow up with at least two additional thin coats of paint. The second coat should be more paint, less oil. The last coat all paint.

Older leather helmets have a better paint job (pre 90's) From 2000 on the paint has seemed to chip, flake and fall off easier.

The paint from the Firestore is good (One Shot) but a good oil based paint will work. (I think Sherwin Williams makes the paint that Cairns uses). The One Shot is a little shiney.

I did not use primer, but you can if you want to. Also if you are taking it down to bare leather then make the 1st coat like 2 oil : 1 paint.


System:

Strip to bare leather using citri strip
2 coats linseed oil
1 coat 2:1 ratio oil to paint
1 coat 2:1 ratio paint to oil
1 coat paint only

This infor above was cut from other replies I have written, if it doesn't seem to make sense, please ask away. They key is not to remove the factory paint if it is in decent shape. Denatured alcohol might also be a good choice for cleaning/tacking up the finish for painting. I have used it for other paint job with success. I have not tried it on a leather, but don't see why it wouldn't work.

Good luck brother...

Permalink Reply by Shawn "Wally" Weilamann on November 24, 2009 at 2:23pm

cool thanks for the help. yeah everything that i could find last night was for paint that was chipping, didnt know how to go about it with the paint in great shape. Where can the citrus strip be found? and whats your thoughts on maybe the use of the white primer cairns recommends? maybe that would help cover the red?

Permalink Reply by Dave LeBlanc on November 24, 2009 at 2:26pm

I found the citrus strip at Home Depot and also at a local paint/hardware store.

White primer can't hurt, even a grey might help hide the red. Again if you don't have to strip it, don't. A good
scuffing should be enough to hold the new paint.

Shawn "Wally" Weilamann said:

cool thanks for the help. yeah everything that i could find last night was for paint that was chipping, didnt know how to go about it with the paint in great shape. Where can the citrus strip be found? and whats your thoughts on maybe the use of the white primer cairns recommends? maybe that would help cover the red?

Permalink Reply by Shawn "Wally" Weilamann on November 25, 2009 at 1:18am

cool thanks for your help im gonna try to get to it this weekend!!

wally

Permalink Reply by Dave LeBlanc on November 25, 2009 at 5:32am

Shout out if you need any help....

Permalink Reply by Walter D. Patterson on February 1, 2010 at 9:05pm

I used the orange citris environmentally safe stripper and it worked great. The citris stripper did not soften the leather or do any damage. Do small areas at a time. I stripped the old black paint to the natural leather and re-painted it flat black.