Removing paint flecks from leatherette?

[hayerjoe]

Hello everyone

I'm looking for some ideas to address the following problem

I have just acquired a nice Pye Black Box radiogram. Naturally it's black leatherette, unfortunately it is speckled with what looks like white ceiling paint in the typical "i'm using a roller so don't have to be careful with a dropsheet" way

Anybody got any good ideas about removing these speckles?

I've tried softening the paint with water, but once dry emulsion seems fairly impervious to water

I considered scrubbing it, tried a bit, but I'm worried about scuffing the leatherette

the best technique I've discovered so far is to to press each fleck with a blunt screwdriver. the reason this works is that the paint fleck is quite rigid, but obviously the leatherette is not, so pressing on the fleck effectively snaps it and then the whole fleck seems to give way. the downside to this technique is the sheer number of flecks will take hours and drive me Doolally!

These are not big paint flecks, just tiny pin pricks of white

Any ideas?

[Ted Kendall]

You might be stuck with that method. Alternatively, use the old keratin spatula, aka fingernail - there's less chance of marking the leatherette.

[Tim]

Old bankers card?

I wonder if some of these white spots are spider poo. Yours does sound like paint though.

[hayerjoe]

thanks fellas

I was just going to clarify that the screwdriver is a tiny jewellers screwdriver so can actually get into the leatherette indentations better than a fingernail, but then I thought, I have a full set of jewellers screwdrivers and some of them are hex shaped and they may be even better than a screwdriver with even less chance of damage to the leatherette

I'm still hanging out for an easy solution though, such as you rub brylcream on it, leave it 24 hours then it just falls off! wishful thinking?!

[Radio Wrangler]

I was given a rather abused Hacker Herald. My neighbour had been greatly impressed by mine, so I fixed the electronics and gave it to him. He spent hours with a small pointed knife blade and magnifier flicking off spots of emulsion paint. He does detailed car interior cleaning, so he had an array of detergents and polishes in stock to get the vinyl back to a show-quality finish. It's now one heck of a looker.

I think flicking individual spots is the only viable approach.

David

[stevehertz]

I have always removed emulsion paint specks the only way I know; spending days removing a few at a time using my fingernail. Don't' look upon it as a big job, just so many each day and eventually you'll get there. Alternatively experiment with solvents and you'll probably end up damaging the finish. Finger nails are best. If a finger nail wont do it, use something sharp like a needle or awl. After they are all removed you can then clean the leatherette with furniture polish and you'll find that any collateral damage in the guise of different coloured specs where the paint was and you've rubbed, will disappear.

[G6Tanuki]

Having had several "Decorator's Friend" Roberts radios with magnolia-emulsion-spiots I found the only sure-fire way to remove them was using a needle in a pin-chuck to pick the spots away one at a time.

[emeritus]

If it's modern emulsion paint, meths will probably soften and dissolve it. It works on the Dulux Trade stuff I use.

[Diabolical Artificer]

Very hot water, like just out of a boiled kettle on a cotton bud or old rag might shift it. Try on one spot then if the covering seems ok do a bigger area. Just about every guitar amp I've seen has these white flecks.

Andy.

[fetteler]

I too would like to recommend the small pointy object flicking off the paint flecks approach. Tedious, but it is the only certain way I know of doing it and getting a near as perfect result.

Steve.

[steve102]

Cocktail sticks are good for picking off paint spots and they don't scratch the surface on leatherette and bakelite.

[vidjoman]

I removed paint flecks from a Dansette record player by cleaning with a coarse cloth, rubbing with a small amount of white spirit. I wasn't too worried if the surface was damaged as I intended to coat the rexine with a leather restorer product because of serious fading on one side, probably caused by sunlight over several years. No visible damage occurred to the main surface but it did remove some finish on the damaged side.
I've used white spirit on wooden cabinets as well and think the paint comes off because the finish has been previously cleaned with a wax or silicon household polish which stops the paint adhering to firmly.

[hayerjoe]

Thanks everyone for your comments. There was, of course, no easy answer. But I thought I’d summarise my findings after I tried a number of the suggestions above.

For brightwork a fingernail or old credit card worked well

For leatherette, this is the best process:

1) I know this seems obvious but don't skimp on this, you really need to give the leatherette a damn good clean. I used a good kitchen spray n wipe product and a tough toothbrush. Important to scrub in swirls as it gets into all the grain. Then soak up the moisture with paper towels. do this repeatedly until the towels stop picking up dirt. It took me 4 very intensive scrubs to stop extracting dirt, but when dry it did look REALLY quite nice, and i would say 20% of paint flecks had already been removed, and another 20% had been softened

2) i then used a pick (not as sharp as a pin, or as blunt as a nail) to one by one removed the flecks. The beauty of the pick was because it wasn't too sharp it wouldn't cut the leatherette, but you could kind of scribble over an area moving in all directions and that helped remove flecks without having to be too precise

3) it took a long time, and I'd return days later to revisit areas I thought I'd completed, but the end result not only looks really good but it also feels great, almost slippery to the touch...you could say factory fresh!

Hope this info helps future restorers