Thanks for the advice, Pammbw. I have a pile of other things to do, including another bag to work on, so leaving it for a week won’t be hard and I can tackle it later. I will definitely dunk it again and work on the stain that way and I will also use the stain remover again. Someone here did 3 applications of stain remover, so it’s worth a try!
Coach Rehab and Rescue Club
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Thank you for the compliment. I haven’t made any for a long time now. Kind of lost interest with leather crafting.
I'm so sorry to read that, Luna. You are so talented.
I'm very fortunate to have several of them! 
Hi Lunasilver, so sorry for hijacking an old thread. I have a Loewe bag (not coach) and it was accidentally handled on wet hands (my bad habit on not entirely drying it before touching my bag) and here in Calgary we are having hard water. Wonder if this incident will result in damaging the leather? I did wipe the excess water if I saw the water spots, but I do believe the water will somehow still seep inside one way or another since leather is porous.
Hi,
Browse the Loewe website a bit, the bags are beautiful, but I couldn’t find the information about their leather. I don’t think wet hands will damage the bag, not enough water especially you wiped off right away. (Just my thoughts and I am no expert)
Browse the Loewe website a bit, the bags are beautiful, but I couldn’t find the information about their leather. I don’t think wet hands will damage the bag, not enough water especially you wiped off right away. (Just my thoughts and I am no expert)
Thank you. I do believe will still pick it up someday, I still have 5 or 6 big rolls of cowhide, and a dozen smaller size of exrotic leather ordered from Australia (was very ambitious at the beginnig), plus all the leather tools, can’t let all the money invested go to waste, just a very long hibernation right now, lol…I'm so sorry to read that, Luna. You are so talented.
I didn't wipe it with cloth though just casually wipe the excess with my fingers, so I think water should definitely has seep in, but based on your experience small amount of water shouldn't damage it? The material is soft calfskin leather, makes me so paranoid about hard water!
I honestly don’t think it will damage leather. Too much water will leave water marks, then the bag need to be dunked to get rid of water marks. As to iron react to acid and turn leather dark, there is only trace amount of iron in city water, the little bit water leather absorbed from wet hands the amount of iron is near none.
(Also it is just my theory the dark spots appeared after dunk is because of iron in the water, it is not confirmed and may not correct, but I do suggest not to add vinegar to the dunk if any hardware is made of steel, such as the vintage coach leather framed kisslock, otherwise during drying process , leather framed over the kisslock May turned black, depends on if the steel is rusty under the leather or not, it may still turn black even without vinegar, because the rust will have a chance to react with tannins inside leather and dye leather black, but this problem is not related to your bag)
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Thanks for sharing your journey LZ! Several years later and few dozen bags in and I am still enjoying the journey and the process.I also have bag OCD, Ca... both when restoring and carrying.I don't want to lower my quality of work when rehabbing, but I do want to nurture acceptance/appreciation for the bags and myself with the results
Thank you so much, z! I can so relate to your statement! Until yesterday's epiphany I was determined to sell my aqua Regina because of the tiny flaw shown below. I have reconsidered and will embrace all 4 of these extraordinary and imperfect bags!
The (almost invisible, but all I could see) wrinkle/flaw, just left of center on the topline of my Regina:
View attachment 5382511
All 4 together this rainy morning (3 are still drying):
View attachment 5382512
thank you so much for your time and for your explanation, I truly appreciate it. Based on your experience what is the worst case scenario would happen to a bag exposed to a lot of hard water? Can leather conditioner fully restore it or is it ruined forever?
Quote my own post to add these photos. I have a jug of vinegar with a a handful of steel nails added months ago, the mixture is rusty yellow colour. The near black color rough cut tea roses were dipped in the mixture for a couple minutes then air dried, compare with the nature color ones without the dip.
The leather is nature color ( which is somewhat tan), the mixture is rusty mustard yellow, put two together you get black coloured leather.
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You are welcome.
It will not ruin the leather, leather CPR conditioning can restore the bag condition, if you worry about the leather get dried out from being wet then air dried.
Lots of us routinely dunk (wash) our Coach bags in water, I also dunked some vachetta leather without problems. A method of wet moulding in leather crafting is to completely soak the natural veg tanned leather, then mould to the shape preferred with some reinforcement ( such as clamping), then let it aid dried. Edmonton water probably is just as hard as Calgary. Water itself won’t damage the leather, (it may leave water marks if the leather was not wetted evenly , but you will notice that once dried), during drying process the leather will lose the oil that lubricant the leather fibre, that is why use leather CPR while bag still damp is very important. The more I think about it, the trace amount of iron in city water shouldn’t matter, but maybe some vintage bags collected dust from rusted iron into leather fibre somehow ( such as steel hardware in the house / bag , or old keys ), they then have a chance to react with tannins inside leather while wet. It only happen occasionally, so in order for leather blacken to happen with dunk, all conditions need to be met.
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Would like to share the repair of pipping damage of the spectator compartment bag. Normal only need to glue back with E6000 Fabric Fuse, but in this bag some leather were worn off, so glue alone wouldn’t do the trick.
First it was glued with E6000, I used extra amount of glue to fill the gap where pipping leather was missing, left it alone for a week.
Second I cut a piece thin veg tanned raw leather, skived it very thin especially around the edges, then glue it onto the the corner to cover up Where leather was missing. Then left it alone for a week.
Third colour touched up the glued leather the best I can with Feibing’s leather antique gel (dark brown color) , I am not good at it the colour is not a good match,.
Although the result is not ideal, but I can live with it, and the fixed bag is structurally sound, for those talented people who have better colour matching skills than me, the results should be better. Just something for others to consider if they need to repair missing leather on pipping.
ETA: bag not rehabbed yet, will give it a month or so for the colour to settle prior to dunk.
First it was glued with E6000, I used extra amount of glue to fill the gap where pipping leather was missing, left it alone for a week.
Second I cut a piece thin veg tanned raw leather, skived it very thin especially around the edges, then glue it onto the the corner to cover up Where leather was missing. Then left it alone for a week.
Third colour touched up the glued leather the best I can with Feibing’s leather antique gel (dark brown color) , I am not good at it the colour is not a good match,.
Although the result is not ideal, but I can live with it, and the fixed bag is structurally sound, for those talented people who have better colour matching skills than me, the results should be better. Just something for others to consider if they need to repair missing leather on pipping.
ETA: bag not rehabbed yet, will give it a month or so for the colour to settle prior to dunk.