PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

JCE · #5 03-02-2007, 12:45 AM

Thanks for all the input. Today the guy from the up[holstery shop came by to look at the car, and said he could fix it in about 1 1/2-2 hours. He said it wouldn't be as perfect as if they could use the old style chemicals, but that the new water based chemicals for the repair had gotten a lot better. Figuring that it couldn't vbe worse than it was, I told him to go ahead and give it a shot.

First step was removing the rear seat and placing it in the sunlight to act as a color template. He mixed away with the water based dye and applied it to the rear seat until he got a match that looked perfect to me. Then he wiped it off the seat cushion and went to work on the burn.

He kept the work area small and used a special pad to buff away the blackened and raised center of the burn on the Tex. Then he did a 'grain match' with a material to approximate the texture of the surrounding undamaged material. He put this 'grain match' patch over the damaged area and used a flat disk soldering tip to melt the tex into a flat and textured pattern.

Next step was to airbrush to color onto the repaired area and let it air dry. Lastly, when he was satisfied with the appearance, he airbrushed on the 'cross-linking' compound which made the entire area permanent.

His instructions were to not use any cleaner or conditioner on it for a week or so. He said it wasn't going to be as shiney as the stock MB Tex for a while, but that sitting on the seat (especially wearing Levis) and use of cleaners and conditioners would make it a close match over time.

The end result is pretty good - not quite perfect. If you know where the burn was, you can find the repair - not by any difference in color, but because the grain is less crisp than the original, and the finish is slightly more matte looking. But if you didn't know that there was a burrn in that area, you probably wouldn't notice it even when cleaning the seats.

The cut on the armrest console piping he said was due to age related brittlness of the piping material. He spliced in a urethane 'fill', but said he couldn't guarantee that it would last, and that I could expect more splits in the material in other areas.

Thanks again for the useful comments.