Did a custom leather dash wrap using some leather we got from Hydes. Came out good. It is part of a full interior thats ours we are doing all custom and using it to fill little time voids over the last 6 months in the shop. The dash was never ment to be wrapped. It was all hard plastic. We redesigned and fabbed some of the plastic to accept a wrap and look proper when all put together in the vehicle. Since we do a lot of plastic fab and repair in the shop anyway, this was no issue for us. I sanded the area to be wrapped with sand paper and did a layer of 1/8" landau foam and sanded/shaped that. Then layed the leather on. 1 solid piece. No seams. It's only the top of the dash. I have not done a dash wrap beforenso this is my first rodeo with this task. Just a lot of other stuff like door panels and dash pads for the upholstery stuff we do.
Only 1 stretch mark and I do not like it. Any tricks to ease this spot? Or am I just looking at a teardown and step 1 all over again? This 1 spot was terrible and I fought it trying to avoid this, and its the only soot on the whole thing that didn't go perfect.... The leather is thema collection from hydes. Really nice. But out of this hide, doing other parts for the interior we noticed it loves to wrinkle on the top surface while working with it and requires extra patience compared to some other hides we have gotten from same collection.
I always say it's hard to wrap an egg in leather. I would slather that area in leather cream and go at it with my steamer. The cream will protect it while you work it . If it gets ruined you were looking at doing it over anyway. You may run into the same issue again though.
what type of cream do you recommend? I've never used it before.
Also what tyoe of warranty do you suggest on a wraoped dash? For peeling.. I've seen 2 year old dashes peel and 10 year old ones not peeling yet. So I don't know what's fair
You can warranty you work but that’s it and that has its limitations. You have no idea if this car is go to sit in the Florida sun for six months Or it’s going to be in a place that has 100% humidity you have no idea if he’s putting a leather conditioner or protector on it ...to many unknowns. Leather in sun gets baked. Leather is a totally different animal (pun intended) and don’t worry about those slight stretch marks . If you have done an amazing job and you confident in your work and everything you did was professional in every way then you should not even have the word warranty in your mind.
I thank you for all of your compliments and more than appreciated them as well as your opion on the warranty. I do agree because you never know what abuse it will get. I have seen 2 year old vehicles with average wear and tear where the leather peels up. And some that go 10 before it happens There is no saying in the end. And I do know people love cheap polishes and iv seen it do extreme damages to new and old vehicles. And it kills leather. They love cheap junk from the part store to obtain a shiney look
Personally I think your asking a bit to much from the leather tbh but if I was to do it, rather than rolling the leather up to that point I would of heated it through and then worked it in.(easy to say)
Your best bet is to heat either via a heat gun or a heated up metal smoother or iron and massage it.