Helped a friend paint the inside of a house. Used oil paint for the trim. Today the HO pointed out a place on the lower part of the brown leather sofa that has quite a bit of paint on it. Looks like it was pushed against a cased doorway, so there’s two tracks about 5″ apart.
No point in trying to figure out how it happened, or who did it. Now we’re into the damage control phase.
Any suggestions on removing oil paint from leather? It’s been there about a week.
“When asked if you can do something, tell’em “Why certainly I can”, then get busy and find a way to do it.” T. Roosevelt
Replies
not much advice, other than to remember that leather used to be living skin. So don't subject it to anything harsher than what you would do to your own living skin.
spot test that stuff called Oops sold at HD or your paint store. I've had good results with it
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Someone here wrote that they got tar on their nice leather tool belt and wondered how to remove the tar. Maybe if you do a search you'll find that thread. I don't remember what he finally did to remove it though. OOPS or Goof-Off might work; like the previous poster said, try it in an inconspicuous spot first.
Ed: Just reread and saw it's oil paint. that'll be harder to get off. Maybe call a furniture store that sells leather sofas and ask them.
Edited 9/7/2005 4:50 am ET by Danno
Try waterless hand cleaner.
I don't think that anything will "take it off", other than a stripper.
The best that you will get is some softening and aid in getting behind it as you slow work it off.
Eddie,
Bill is right; Go-Jo or another hand cleaner might just do it. Most of them are lanolin with some mineral spirits. I'd sure give it a try. Be patient, smear a little on and let it "work" for a few minutes.
Good luck.
Greg
Edited 9/7/2005 9:35 am ET by GregGibson
I had a simalar problem . Magic marker. Black color in a tanned leather couch. I called a sadlelry shop and asked. He advised constant treatment with mink oil on the entire couch and especially the area in question. The oil soaked into the leather behind the stain and released it . That was the plan instead of removing from the surface top. It worked but DW and I were scared to death we had ruined an expensive couch. Actually I had done it carrying a marker in my back pocket at work and must have broke it in the truck comming home or on the couch. I was in deep do do with her.
I did however change the color of the couch and had to add treatments to match where my boo boo occured to blend color. I could have treated the couch to remove the mink oil all together with a naptha based leather cleaner . I was to get that at the dry cleaners if I had failed with blending the colors.
Tim
It was a paid job. My buddy had the contract and I had some free time so I helped. Best we can figure, one of us bumped the wall while moving the sofa.
A combination of GoJo and Simple Green took off the paint ... and some of the leatrher dye. It left a lighter area. Went to a shoe repair store and bought some spray dye, made a few light passes and it looks great.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
since you said HO - is this a "job" or a favor - seems to me if the HO pushed it against the trim, isn't it the HO's problem, not the painter's? If it's a favor, you might want to check the phone book for leather/fur cleansers (like laundry - shirt in on Monday, back on Wednesday) - they should be dealing with situations like that more often than "us"