Product Overview
Leather Hydrator 3.3 by Leather Doctor is a pH 3.3 hydrating conditioner to relax and stretch out leather stiffness, creases, and wrinkles before fat liquoring.
This pH 3.3 hydrator facilitates colloidal water movement, reactivating the dormant dyestuff to resurface and reducing the leather surface interfacial tension.
Instruction:
1: Before using, concentrates are to be mixed with distilled water at ratio 1: 25.
2: Pretest, apply, and work into cleaned leather or suede.
3: Accelerate saturation by working on the reverse side, micro-cracks, stitching seam, or perforated panel for a darkening effect.
4: Optional thorough saturation is achieved by covering with a soaked-up stretchable Towel 5.
5: Allow 1 to 72 hours of dwelling for effective relaxing results.
6: Continue with Fatliquor 5.0, allowing 5/6 of the water to evaporate, and when almost dry, massage to the desired suppleness.
People Also Ask:
1: Why Hydrate before Fatliquoring?
2: What is the usage ratio between Hydrator 3.3 and Fatliquor 5.0?
3: What is Leather Surface Tension?
4: How to Inspect for Leather Surface Tension?
5: How to Remove Fatliquor Surface Residue?
6: How to Remove Wicked Moisture from the Leather Surface?
7: How to Dry Leather?
8: How to Soften Leather after Drying?
9: What is Leather Stiffness?
10: What is an Unnatural Crease in Leather?
11: How to Restore an Unnatural Crease?
12: How to Relax the Leather Thickness?
13: How to Work out the Unnatural Crease?
14: When should you begin Fatliquoring after working out the Unnatural Crease?
15: When should you clean up Fatliquor Surface Residue?
16: How to Soften Drying Leathers after Fatliquoring?
17: What is Leather Structural Cleaning?
18: How does Leather Structural Cleaning Work?
19: How to Remove Suspended Soiling?
20: When to Begin Fatliquoring after Leather Structural Cleaning?
21: How is Fatliquoring done on Damp leather?
22: How to Remove Fatliquor Surface Residue?
23: How to Soften Drying Leather after Cleaning up with Hydrator 3.3?
24: What is Dye Bleeding?
25: How to Control Dye Bleeding?
26: What is Leather Tackiness?
27: How to Control Leather Tackiness?
28: How to Restore Sun-Fading Leather?
29: How to Reverse Transfer Penetrated Suspended Soiling?
30: How Reverse-Transfer Technique Work?
31: How to Restore the pH Neutral of Leather?
32: How to Remove Fatliquor Residue from Leather Surface?
33: How to Restore Shrinkaged Leather?
34: How to Lay Flat a Cowhide and Other Hair-on-Rug?
35: Why Not to Over Relax an Embossed or Handcrafted Leather?
1: Why Hydrate Before Fatliquoring?
1.1: In fatliquoring, hydrating, and softening the leather are equally important.
1.2: Hydrator 3.3 plays a crucial role in this process by relaxing and opening up the inter-fibrillary spaces, facilitating and redistributing colloidal water movement, protonating, balancing the pH, and cleaning up any excess surface remnants to leave a residue-free surface.
2: What is the usage ratio between Hydrator 3.3 and Fatliquor 5.0?
2.1: In practice for severe dryness, the weight ratio of Hydrator 3.3 to Fatliquor 5.0 is 2:1.
2.2: To recondition 100g of dry leather from less than 1% moisture content back to the modern tannery standard of 14%, it requires 160g of Hydrator 3.3 and 80g of Fatliquor 5.0.
3: What is Leather Surface Tension?
3.1: Leather surface tension prevents liquid penetration and uneven absorption may result in undesirable blotchiness.
4: How to Inspect for Leather Surface Tension?
4.1: The leather surface should be lightly mist-sprayed with Hydrator 3.3 and wiped with a lint-free towel to ensure even surface tension when inspecting for an even darkening appearance at an angle.
5: How to Remove Fatliquor Surface Residue?
5.1: The unwanted sticky and shiny surface residue of fatliquor remaining on the leather can be removed with Hydrator 3.3.
5.2: The suspended residue will appear cloudy and can be brushed with Hydrator 3.3 into the leather until the liquid turns crystal clear.
6: How to Remove Wicked Moisture from the Leather Surface?
6.1: The crystal-clear moisture on the leather surface is towel-extracted until the towel shows dry.
7: How to Dry Leather?
7.1: Leather dries out at ambient room temperature with low humidity or by using a dehumidifier to remove excess humidity for a quick dry without using heat.
7.2: Slow drying produces a softer leather.
8: How to Soften Leather after Drying?
8.1: When almost dry, the leather is staked, stretched, or massaged to ensure complete drying for the desired suppleness.
9: What is Leather Stiffness?
9.1: Leather stiffness is fiber within the structure that becomes stuck together when it gets wet and then dries again.
9.2: Severe stiffness occurs when the fatliquor leaches out during water damage and is exposed to fast-drying heat.
9.3: It is important to handle stiff leather with caution to prevent cracking.
10: What is an Unnatural Crease in Leather?
10.1: A leather unnatural crease is a wrinkle resulting from the collapsing empty leather fiber structure due to a diminishing fatliquor (fat and oil) content.
11: How to Restore an Unnatural Crease?
11.1: An unnatural crease is restored by saturating the leather to an optimum level with moisture oozing out when gently pressed between fingers and thumb using Hydrator 3.3.
12: How to Relax the Leather Thickness?
12.1: The leather, after saturation with Hydrator 3.3, is left to dwell for up to 72 hours with periodic topping up when the leather surface becomes dry.
12.2: Depending on the environment, for a long dwell, Mold Killer 3.6 is recommended to control mold and mildew growth.
13: How to Work out the Unnatural Crease?
13.1: The unnatural crease is manipulated by staking, stretching, massaging, or cross-flexing to relax the leather to satisfaction, in conjunction with continued saturation with Hydrator 3.3.
14: When should you begin Fatliquoring after working out the Unnatural Crease?
14.1: Fatliquoring begins when the excess moisture content is removed with a dry towel extraction until the towel remains dry from wiping and the leather is still damp with Hydrator 3.3.
14.2: Fatliquoring begins before the leather is completely dry.
15: When should you clean up Fatliquor Surface Residue?
15.1: Fatliquor surface residue is cleaned up after the leather is left to slowly dry and any surface shining residue is further driven into the leather structure by brushing, in conjunction with Hydrator 3.3 until milky residue if any turns crystal clear is extracted with a cotton towel until the towel shows dry.
16: How to Soften Drying Leathers after Fatliquoring?
16.1 Drying leather after fatliquoring is further physically softened by staking, stretching, massaging, or cross-flexing one more time before the leather is completely dried for the desired suppleness.
16.2: The best result is manipulating the still slightly damp leather to complete dryness for the extra desired suppleness.
17: What is Leather Structure Cleaning?
17.1: Leather structure cleaning is the suspension and removal of penetrated soiling to the surface by a wicking process and towel extraction.
18: How does Leather Structural Cleaning Work?
18.1: Structural cleaning of penetrated soiling will need appropriate leather-safe products like Hydrator 3.3 to penetrate, lubricate, and suspend the soiling.
18.2: To move the suspended soiling will need to hydrate the leather structure with enough liquid so that a wicking process takes place for the suspended soiling to be towel extracted.
18.3: As each wicking process can carry so much soiling, repeat hydration of the leather structure is necessary until an entire load of soiling is removed from the surface.
19: How to Remove Suspended Soiling?
19.1 Suspended soiling is removed by squeezing extraction between an absorbent towel and a smooth spatula to reduce abrasion until the towel shows clean.
20: When to Begin Fatliquoring after Leather Structural Cleaning?
20.1: Leather fatliquoring begins after leather structural cleaning and while the leather is still slightly damp.
21: How Fatliquoring is done on Damp Leather?
21.1: Fatliquor 5.0 is applied and distributed for even absorption until saturation and is left to slow natural drying.
21.2: When almost dry, the repeat cycle of application, distribution, absorption, saturation, and slow-natural drying is repeated until the leather absorbs no more.
22: How to Remove Fatliquor Surface Residue?
22.1: Unwanted fatliquor surface residue is removed by re-absorption into the leather structure once activated by Hydrator 3.3 turning the milky residue if any crystal clear.
22.2: Surface moisture is then cotton towel until the towel shows dry.
23: How to Soften Drying Leather after Cleaning up with Hydrator 3.3?
23.1: After cleaning up with Hydrator 3.3 the leather is softened by staking, stretching, massaging, or cross-flexing one more time before the leather is completely dried for the desired suppleness.
24: What is Dye Bleeding?
24.1: Dye bleeding is the leaching out of the dyestuff from the leather protein fiber, common with dye-through aniline leathers and suede.
24.2: Dye becomes easily transferrable when rubbed on and can easily be detected with a white towel on damp leather.
24.3: The higher the pH value of liquid above 7, the more the leather bleeds.
25: How to Control Dye Bleeding?
25.1: A low pH value product like Hydrator 3.3 is used and in severe cases, a lower pH Acidifier 2.0 is used as a booster.
25.2: The entire dye bleeding panel is saturated to increase the hydrogen bond between the dyestuff and the leather protein fiber.
26: What is Leather Tackiness?
26.1: Leather tackiness is the leaching out of the tanning agents from the protein leather fiber and the leather becomes tacky or slimy when damp.
27: How to Control Leather Tackiness?
27.1: The control of leather tackiness is through restoring the alkaline over-exposure area by facilitating colloidal water movement to redistribute the tanning agents from surrounding areas back to the affected areas with Hydrator 3.3 and Acidifier 2.0 as a pH booster is recommended.
27.2: A squeaky feel with finger testing determines a satisfactory result.
28: How to Restore Sun-Fading Leather?
28.1: Sun fading, sun bleaching, or dye fading refers to the loss of leather color under sunlight or UV light overexposure.
28.2: When leather is dyed through the reverse side, the hidden dyestuff within the structure may be activated to refresh through the surface with Hydrator 3.3.
28.3: Color intensity is further boosted by Fatliquor 5.0 fat and oil.
28.4: The desired result will depend on excess dyestuff within the leather structure and the dwell time for the hydration to release the excess dyestuff to resurface, and the result may vary from the quality of the original dyeing process.
29: How to Reverse Transfer Penetrated Suspended Soiling?
29.1: Penetrated suspended soiling after specialty cleaning is reverse-transfer by capillary action or a wicking process is deployed to move soiling particulates to resurface with a wettable towel and Hydrator 3.3 reverse-transfer technique.
30: How Reverse-Transfer Technique Work?
30.1: First, the leather structure needs to be hydrated and saturated with Hydrator 3.3 to facilitate colloidal water movement within the structural inter-fibrillary spaces to move the suspended soiling upwards.
30.2: As it wicks through the wettable towel, soiling particulates are trapped instead of remaining on the leather surface to be easily peeled off.
31: How to Restore the pH Neutral of Leather?
31.1: Leather has an average pH value of 3 to 5 when reading is taken from a leather pH meter.
31.2: Leather is an amphoteric material or a pH-sensitive protein fiber.
31.3: Alkaline solution with a pH value of 7 will shift the protein fiber ionic negative (-ve), while the other common constituents like the tanning agents, dyestuff, and fatliquor are non-amphoteric and remain ionic negative (-ve).
31.4: Behaving like a magnet, “both negative poles repel each other”, the constituent breaks the hydrogen bond with the protein fiber, and the leather denatures or reverts to rawhide.
31.5: Breaking of hydrogen bonds between the protein fibers and their constituents often manifests as tackiness, bleeding, and stiffness when leather gets wet and dry again.
31.6: Charging of the protein fibers ionic positive (+ve) has to go below its pH neutral.
31.7: In extreme cases, besides Hydrator 3.3, Acidifier 2.0 with a pH value of 2.0 accelerates the ionic positive (+ve) charging processes to restore the pH neutrality of leather.
32: How to Remove Fatliquor Residue from Leather Surface?
32.1: Fatliquor 5.0 with its fat and oil content is essential to restore leather suppleness structurally, any surface residue may alter the leather's original surface luster and attracts soiling.
32.2: Removing unabsorbed fatliquor surface residue is done by brushing with appropriate brushes while spraying with Hydrator 3.3 turning any milky residue to crystal clear.
33: How to Restore Shrinkaged Leather?
33.1: Leather shrinkage is often experienced when leather is water damaged in conjunction with fast heat drying from the sun.
33.2: Another common dry shrinkage is from the intense heat from other sources or fireplaces.
33.3 Heat evaporates the fatliquor (fat and oil); the leather fibers shrunk, become stuck together, and result in stiffness.
33.4: Fatliquor is the lifeblood of leather and with deficiency, the leather stiffens up and easily leads to tearing or cracking.
33.5: Shrinkage restoration is performed with Hydrator-3.3 as a relaxer, Fatliquoring with Fatliquor 5.0 to replenish the fat and oil, and again Hydrator 3.3 to clean up the surface sticky residue.
34: How to Lay Flat a Cowhide and other Hair-on-Rug?
34.1: Cowhide and other hair-on-rug may not lie flat the first time.
34.2: Curls at the edges normally reflect drops in percentages of fat and oil content.
34.3: This refuses-to-lay flat phenomenon is directly related to the dryness of its original fatliquor.
34.4: The optimum average percentage of fat and oil content averages 14% (read from a leather moisture meter).
34.5: A moisture meter may show a percentage fluctuation of fat and oil moisture level from area to area.
34.6: To restore and put the rug to lay flat to satisfaction, the rug has to be hydrated to even out its uneven tension in addition to fatliquoring to increase its suppleness.
34.7: Without topping up its fat and oil content the rug will stiff up and eventually leads to tears and cracks.
34.8: Hydrating with Hydrator 3.3 to relax the rug before fatliquoring with Fatliquor 5.0 softens up the hide to lay flat much more easily.
35: Why Not to Over Relax an Embossed or Handcrafted Leather?
35.1: Not all embossed leathers are strongly created by a mechanical hot plating hydraulic press, some are softly handcrafted and any prolonged hydration may relax the embossing out with Hydrator 3.3.
Edited on April 29, 2024 by Roger Koh
