This green leather, large format volume (550 mm x 390mm x 50mm) came in with deep scratches on its front cover. There was other ware and tear to the corners and edges, but since it is one volume in a set of five, the client asked that only damage associated with the scratches be repaired.

The majority of the scratches were on the top third of the book.

Close-up of some of the scratches.

I applied light humidity to the segments of the scratches where the leather was stretched, rather than torn, and smoothed it back into place using a Teflon folder. Then I applied a very dry wheat starch paste, using a micro-spatula, to the torn and lifted segments of the scratches before smoothing them back into place.

Two shades of tinted SC7400 were put on the scratches, after the paste was completely dried, to protect the leather. I used two shades and left some parts of the scratches un-tinted so that the repaired areas would blend in with the mottled appearance of the leather on the rest of the volume. Finally, un-tinted SC7400 was lightly applied over the entire center panel, giving the leather would have a uniform shine.

Close-up of scratches after using toned SC7400.

This is where some of the scratches extended into the gold tooling. I toned everything green instead of trying to match the gold. It is extremely difficult to do touch-ups to gold, because, even if you can match the shade of gold, the new tooling will be brighter and therefore stand out more. By toning the area green, the repairs fade into the background.

Here is the final product! Most of the lines still visible are because of the light catching the different textures of the leather.