What is Two Tone Leather?
Two Tone Leather Pigmented Hide
This type of leather has a contrasting finish known as two tone leather.
2-tone leathers are made up of several shades of pigmented finish on the surface to give the effect of a two-tone leather finish item.
Two Tone leather finishes are mainly used in the furniture industry and are very well known on chesterfield sofas. On chesterfields some people refer to these as an antique finish due to the contrasting finish and wear that takes place with age.
You can create a two-tone finish leather on any colour and type of leather, what you are doing is applying thin layers of pigmented finish with PU lacquer leaving each layer translucent and see through, so that each colour represents a layer of colour.
In a lot of cases depending on the 2-tone finish desired a very fine layer of black pigment mixed with PU lacquer is applied over the surface to give a dark shadowing effect to the finish to complete the process.
It’s easy to be confused over Rub Off Leather compared to Two Tone Leather. Rub off leather is a process very different to two tone leather, a surface coating is applied and then the top layer is rubbed off with an alcohol solution to reveal the layers below, leaving darker shades within the grain to give an almost antique look to the leather finish.
Rub Off Leather Pigmented Finish
Below is an example of two-tone leather being created on a cream leather armchair, transforming the armchair into a beautiful antique more luxury looking chair than a standard cream.
The first stage to creating the two different tones is to remove all the old surface coating and pigment paint so hardly anything is left on the surface.
Stage 1 Of 2-Tone Leather
Stage 2 in the process is the application of the base layer of pigment, this is always a much lighter colour than those colours being applied to the top.
Stage 2 Of 2-Tone Leather
Stage 3 of the process is to ensure a full even coating of the much lighter base colour is applied.
Stage 3 Of 2-Tone Work
Stage 4 in the process is starting to apply darker shades drying as you go to make sure these are locked in.
Stage 4 Of Two-Toning
The 5th stage of 2-tone leather is applying the final black wash finish over the surface along with a lacquer mixture, this is normally achieved by mixing 80% lacquer with 20% pigment paint finish, a gloss lacquer is used for the final stage to give sheen and to bring out the full effects of the two tone finish on the surface.
Stage 5 Of Two Tone Pigmentation
The finished items looks truly stunning and it is an amazing transformation.
2-Tone Pigmented Finish Completed
Creating this type of finish is not as difficult as it may appear. Once you have been shown how to do this, it’s as easy process to undertake and carry out. Spot repairs are very simple and easy to do, you just have to learn the process for this, training courses can help a great deal to find out about how to make or repair two tone. If you want to give this a go look at taking up a training course.