Buying leather repair kit

[stephenmercedes]

My favourite 'Loakes' thank you for such an illustrious history...

 

[dm2583]

LMGTFY

Hahaha love it!

 

[noogieman]

LMGTFY

how did you manage to do this, that's magic?
cursor moving around by itself

 

[noogieman]

The answer to this may be, that, once upon a time we were a prolific shoe manufacturing nation, and in my town, Northampton, and the surrounding area, there were shoe factories everywhere and half the population seemed employed in the shoe and leather industries. Where I live in town, within a quarter mile radius there still must be the remains of half a dozen factories. So many houses, rows and rows of terraced small houses, mine included, were built to house the factory workers. In July, the factories would shut for 2 weeks, so called "Factory Fortnight " and those that could afford it would all be off to the East Coast for 2 weeks by the sea.
So my Mum told me, my Gran was employed by Mulliners in town, sewing expensive seats for Bentleys, my Grandad worked at United Counties coaches in the upholstery section and my other Grandad was also a shoe factory worker somewhere in the town. Whole families were employed in the factories from the cradle to the grave. My Dad bucked the trend by becoming a printer and Mum was a machinist in a clothing factory. Walking home from school, I would look into Trueform's factory windows and see all the workers, and the noise and I decided then that I was not going into a shoe factory.
Leather dye, super strong glue, strong thread and even pieces of leather were always available if you "knew someone", as were cheap good quality shoes! Although as a child, ( of the 50's ), I seem to remember having cardboard glued into the bottom of my shoes when I had worn them through, just to make them last longer.
In latter years my next door neighbour would get me a small pot of black paste to touch up my leather bike jacket when it got too scuffed.You could get high on the smell of that stuff.
These huge factories are now all closed down, killed off by cheap imports from abroad and all that remains are the buildings and also some speciality shoe manufacturers ( read expensive ) who seem to survive by selling bespoke shoes at £200-300 a pair. ( Church's, Loakes, ) Dr Martens was manufactured in Rushden by Griggs, but they have now relocated to Poland and Thailand. Also remember the film / movie "Kinky Boots", that was shot in Northampton.
I seem to recall a range of products made by "Punch " for getting rid of scratches etc, this included a paste / dye for renovating leather products.
With any leather item, you have to remember that once it was a living item and leather needs feeding and conditioning to keep it supple and looking good. Hence my need to blag some repair paste for the jacket in the past. Also hence the need to spend time cleaning your leather seats properly and feeding the leather from time to time.
I recall on several episodes of " Wheeler Dealers " they would take awful looking leather seats to a specialist who would strip the leather colouring and re-dye them and make them look like new.

- Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe
Anyway enough of my ramblings ......

Steve.

this is very nice story about shops spezialised in handmade craftmanship located in small towns

the old people are now a dying breed.
when the masters leaves and there are no new grasshoppers to take over the business, knowledge goes into the grave with the masters.

today most mechanikis are no longer real fixers, they only replace parts!
old skool mechanics who learned the hard way in skool, they can fix most broken parts like alternators and starter motor and other parts where spring chickens only replace parts.

 

[JurassicSL500]

Buffalo Leather in Preston do a superb range of car leather repair products.
Check out their website.

 

[noogieman]

Buffalo Leather in Preston do a superb range of car leather repair products.
Check out their website.

thanks, will look into this.

 

[JurassicSL500]

Wished I could find out where the leather code is on my R230 SL500!

 

[markjay]

Wished I could find out where the leather code is on my R230 SL500!

It would be on the datacard.

Google "MB VIN Decoder".

 

[JurassicSL500]

It would be on the datacard.

Google "MB VIN Decoder".

Thanks rather than highjack this thread I have asked the same question on another thread. The data card shows 501A Black/Anthracite.
But it is much lighter than that and reading the forums threads 501A is not actually a leather code. So confused!