I posted this question about a year ago and never got a reply. Do any members know how I could repair the scuff marks on my steering wheel? Would it be best to take the wheel to the furniture shop that does leather repair and let them have at it or is there something I can do at home to make it look like it never happened?
Jeff, check out wheelskins.com I purchased my leather from them and stitched it myself. Perhaps they can be of help to you. Hope this helps.
It won't look like it never happened, but you could cover a lot of that up with black shoe polish and then give it a good buffing.
I have read up on this a little and learn that never use super/crazy glue or strong chemicals such as alcohol or acetone because it will do more damage than good. Shoe polish will not soak in automotive leather like it does with shoe leather. I got this info here... http://www.fibrenew.com/sunflower/tag/diy/ and here http://www.fibrenew.com/sunflower/leathery-lies-top-5-myths-about-leather-repair/ I never seen a steering wheel look good with Wheelskin. They all wrinkle up at the spokes (except the wheels on their website).
I guess we can agree to disagree then, the super glue method works and it is flexible. When I tried it I had my doubts also but it made a wheel that should have been thrown away just like new and was just as flexible as the good material on the wheel and couldnt tell it was on there. Wish I would have taken some before and after pics. Hope you find a reasonable solution and share it
If you are not too worried about the texture as much as the discoloration get a black sharpie, color it in and wipe it off right away. The color will blend in so you won't notice it as much.
IMO whoever stitched that has no clue about working leather properly. A little more work than just doing the inside seem and that would turn out fine. I agree with the rest of what you said though, I've never liked the super glue methods for re-doing leather work. And it's not so much that shoe polish doesn't soak into automotive leather, it doesn't really soak into any leather. That is actually dyed leather, shoe polish would come off on your hands like nobodies business. There's a reason to keep a nice pair of boots looking nice you need to redo the polish frequently. Whereas if the shoe is made with dyed leather you don't need to polish pretty much ever, and just buffing will typically do enough to the surface grains to put them back into looking nice on dyed leather.
It looks to me like your leather is fine, but the coating or dye is wearing. If that's the case, you can sand the coating off and re-dye it. Leatherique and a few other companies carry the dye and they also have putty to fill small cracks.
Leatherique website looks promising. This is what I was looking for. I went ahead and ordered their steering wheel kit. Thanks for the tip. I will keep everybody up to date on this project. http://www.leatherique.com/steering-wheels.html
Here's the update. I got the steering wheel re-dye kit from Leatherique last summer. The 4oz bottle of the prepping solution wasn't enough and I ended up buying a the 16 oz bottle along with more cleaner and crack filler. The instruction said to apply the dye when the humidity was low so the steering wheel got put on the back burner while waiting on cooler weather. Last week I found time to finish what I started and here are the results. The last pic was taken right after spraying the Klear Kote. The steering wheel is not that glossy once it dried. I plan to have the steering wheel installed tomorrow. First pic shows what the Rejuvenator did. 2nd pic is after sanding with 1000 grit paper. 3rd pic is filling the cracks. 4th pic is after the dye was applied. 5th pic is after the Klear Kote. More pics and detail on my website http://1bad6t.com/Maverick/maverick_54.html
