"Un-dying" a leather jacket that was dyed?

[Navin323i]

I got into using acetone in the middle 1960s when I used to work at week-ends and evenings for a motorbike racer who made GRP (fiberglass) fairings. Acetone is used to clean polyester resin off tools etc. You soon found that it would remove the colour from leather if you wore your favourite leather jacket to 'lay up' in!

At the time I 'had a thing' for a brown leather 'bike jacket - almost unobtainable in the UK at the time. So, I used acetone in the way described (keep wiping quickly and dump the cloths when they are full of colour) to remove the black dye. Chrome tanned leather will usually go to a blue-grey colour. Then I used brown shoe dye, taking off the resulting bloom with shoe cream. As I recall, it looked OK.

If you just want to reduce the density of the black finish, I suggest that a moderate wiping with acetone would lighten the finish, allowing you to use some brown polish to get that 'patina'.

I replied to your PM - I no longer have the buffalo jacket. I have a briefcase made from buffalo (again picked up in India). That's dense, tough leather.

That's strange... I never got your PM. My inbox was briefly full at one point so perhaps you sent the message to me but didn't notice the system-generated message indicating my mailbox was full... my apologies.

Thanks for the good info... I'll look into that option of finding acetone. I wonder if nail polish remover would work too (my wife has a bottle of that).

 

[cptjeff]

Nail polish remover is acetone.

Also, I would really recommend using a leather conditioner after using any sort of solvent on leather. Otherwise you dry it out and could do some serious damage.

 

[Navin323i]

Nail polish remover is acetone.

Also, I would really recommend using a leather conditioner after using any sort of solvent on leather. Otherwise you dry it out and could do some serious damage.

You know... that's what I thought too but figured I'd wait and see if someone would say they're the same... thanks.

Yeah, I definitely will use leather conditioner (Pecards). I will look at doing a small spot test with the nail polish remover (maybe in the armpit area of the jacket so it won't be too noticeable) and see how it looks.