Leather and vinyl; they’re just like us in that if you don’t moisturise them occasionally they’ll crack open and start causing problems. This includes gamer chairs and is probably why your two-year-old gamer chair is lightly stabbing you in the thigh while you’re reading this. The good news is that this is a totally fixable problem. It’s also a preventable problem. But first, here’s how to fix your cracked gamer chair:
(Also, if it’s still under warranty or covered by Australian Consumer Law, the best way to fix your cracked gamer chair is to take it back to the store/call the company that made it).
How To Fix Your Cracked Gamer Chair: The Proper Nice Good Way
Most gamer chairs are made out of “vegan leather”, which is great for animals up front. However, while vegan leather can be made out of cacti and all kinds of materials that are better for the environment, it’s usually just PVC or vinyl, which are nice ways of saying plastic. These materials are terrible for the environment and also have a short life span if not perfectly cared for in a manner not dissimilar to a house plant.
The good news is, though, that plastic is meltable and easily synthesised, so this is a fixable problem.
Tools required:
- Cloth x 3
- Hand soap
- 320-grit sandpaper
- Liquid vinyl (colour-matched to your chair) (you can get this from some hardware, furniture, auto and craft shops)
- A small spatula tool or another kind of scraper
- A hairdryer
- Vinyl finish spray
- Graining paper, if you’re feeling fancy
Method:
Step 1: Wet the clean cloth with warm water (you want it wet, but not dripping wet), and put some hand soap on it. Then clean the cracked part of the chair, including around 5cm on either side of the crack. Getting all the dirt, body oils and other general grossness off the chair will help the vinyl formula bond to the chair, and also make it less gross. Given how much food you’ve probably dropped on the chair (not to mention all the farts), also consider cleaning the whole chair.
Step 2: Get the second cloth, wet it with warm water, and then use it to get all the soap off the chair, making sure it’s all off. With the third (dry) cloth, wipe all the water off the chair and then let the chair air dry fully.
Step 3: Use the sandpaper to lightly scuff up around the crack. Scuff the crack itself and up to around 1cm around the crack. You don’t want to sand hard enough to remove the top coat, you’re just wanting to make the surface a bit rough so the vinyl formula will be able to stick better.
Step 4: Follow the instructions on the vinyl formula to mix it up and add colour as needed. This will be easier if you have a chair with a colour that’s common to car seats, and more difficult if you’ve gone for something awesome like Barbie pink.
Step 5: use the little scraper tool to put a thin layer of the formula on the crack and a little bit beyond (on all the parts you scuffed). It’s better to do multiple thin layers than one thick layer, so, if necessary, this is where the hair dryer comes in to speed up the process. Go out a little bit further with each layer so you don’t end up with a big ridge at the edges, because you want to make this look seamless.
Step 6: if you have a piece of graining paper that matches the texture of your chair, you can put that over the repair and use an iron for 30-60 seconds to emboss the grain over the part you repaired. It’ll make it look much nicer, and as though the crack never happened.
Step 7: Spray with clear vinyl finish spray to provide a new top coat and I cannot stress enough how much your windows should be open/you should be outside for this part.
How To Fix Your Cracked Gamer Chair: The Lazy Way
Unfortunately, the Proper Nice Good Way requires a lot of time and tools, and this means your chair will be out of use for at least a day. Sometimes you need a less elegant solution that fixes the problem fast, cheaply, and temporarily. The beauty of the lazy way is that it makes the crack Future You’s problem, and they’re probably much better equipped to handle the issue.
Tools required:
- Electrical tape or duct tape in the same colour as your chair (or any colour, really, I’m not your interior decorator)
Method:
- Step 1: Cut a bit of tape that’s a bit bigger than the crack.
- Step 2: Stick the tape over the crack
How To Fix Your Cracked Gamer Chair: If it’s Made Of Real Leather
Good news, buddy, they make leather tape. So follow the steps of The Lazy Way, but replace “electrical tape” with “leather tape”, et voila, your chair is repaired. You can also use leather filler, which works very similarly to The Proper Nice Good Way, but requires a knife, and changes hugely depending on which brand kit you buy, so just follow the instructions for that.
How To Stop The Cracks In The First Place
All that said, it’s much better to stop your chair from cracking in the first place.
Well-cared-for leather will last generations. You just use a leather conditioner once a year (depending on which one you buy), try to keep it out of direct sunlight, and make sure you clean spills as they happen.
But, leather chairs are expensive and definitely involve an animal dying up front in the process (though, arguably, using a plastic vinyl alternative that won’t last and will have a half-life of hundreds of years could lead to the deaths of many animals, and doing the ethical maths on that is hard). Most gamer chairs are made of PVC vinyl, so that’s most likely the kind you’re going to end up with.
Vinyl is harder to maintain. If you live in a humid area, you should get a dehumidifier, because while PVC hates being dry, it also hates being humid. You should also try to keep it out of the sun, because UV rays damage it. On top of that, you should use a vinyl conditioner twice a year, and they’re available from most furniture shops, craft stores, auto supply stores, and hardware stores.
Generally speaking, though, all leather and vinyl furniture will crack at some point. You’ve seen your grandma’s couch. It’s just a matter of how long, how bad, and how easy it is to fix.
Leave a Reply