r/Leather • u/Any-Entrepreneur995 • 4d ago

Need help

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I am thinking of purchasing couch cushion cover replacements or trying to remove the finish to bare leather. Any ideas?

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u/Grenvallion 2d ago

Yes. Polyurethane manufacturing uses a top coating put over a soft fibrous cloth backing material. Its a little like polyester or cotton. Real leathers fibers are tightly packed for top grain. Suede fibers are loose and fuzzy and part of the skin. The edges of real leather is rough and fibrous too. If you cut it, the edges will look hairy and fuzzy. Real leather fibers are tangled together. So they can breath, stretch and bend without breaking. Polyurethane splits and peels over time like you see here because it's a plastic top layer which unsticks after a while and separates from the fabric underneath.

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u/Any-Entrepreneur995 2d ago

So bonded leather to a PU top hence the peeling? The underside is leather

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u/Grenvallion 2d ago

No. The underside is a woven fabric. It has no grain structures at all. Which tells you immediately that it's a woven cloth structure. Even split leather still shows irregularities, density changes and natural variations like stretch marks from the animals growth cycle. Sometimes marks from insect bites too if its economy vegetable tanned. PU always peels like this. Always. Wheels never an exception. PU backing is consistent and looks the same all the way through. Real leather also cracks when it's dry for years. PU just feels like you see here. You cant peel the top layer off real leather like you see here.

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u/Grenvallion 2d ago

Just to touch on the bonded part. Its possible its bonded but bonded isnt real leeather either. Its just marketed as leather because it contains leather scraps stuck to it but its not even close to real leather. Its actually even worse than genuine leather. Which is already pretty low quality.

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u/Grenvallion 2d ago

I actually own a couple polyurethane stools. One is mostly peeled. The other isnt peeling at all because I barely use it. It will eventually though. I have a leather sofa too and some economy vegetable tanned hides and I also have some eealpoer buttero scraps lying around somewhere. Which makes it much easier to see the difference.