How to Treat a Dry Scuffed Leather Book Binding

Maintaining the condition of leather book bindings on a consistent schedule is important to keeping up the investment made in a potential heirloom. If your leather-bound book is more than 100 years old, find out first the value of your book before doing anything to it. Next, take it to a professional restorer for advice on how to clean or repair your book properly, or have them do it for you. If you have a leather-bound book you bought fairly recently, then you can easily maintain the cover with a simple regimen.

Several soft dry microfiber polishing cloths
Clear-colored leather or shoe polish
One pair of soft gloves

Instructions

- 1
  
  Use a slightly damp cloth to remove hardened dust and dirt.
  
  Wipe your book clean of dust and dirt first with a spare dry cloth. Find an area, such as the back inside edge corner, of your book where you can test your cleaning application first to see how the leather reacts. Do a large enough section so you can see the results and wipe the section dry before starting on the rest of the book.
- 2
  
  Use a lighter touch than when polishing a leather saddle.
  
  Begin your test cleaning by dabbing a small touch of polish onto the cloth, using two fingers to dab on the polish surface. With your book open to the back binding, gently dab polish onto the surface edge of the binding. Move your fingers to a clean spot on the cloth and gently spread the polish evenly over the leather surface. Wipe over the applied section with another clean part of the cloth until you don't see any polish globs left on the leather. Shift again to another clean cloth section and gently polish the edges with a repeated circular motion.
- 3
  
  Be careful of polishing on gold lettering.
  
  Repeat your cleaning routine on the back side of your closed book once you determined the test was successful. Apply your polish and cloth in sections and complete each section before moving to the next area of the leather. Turn the book over and repeat the routine on the front book face. Never rub too hard on any writing areas as you may rub out the ink. This is especially true of gold print usually found on bibles and other religious tomes.
- 4
  Put your gloves on for the last step if you have not done so beforehand. Hold your book up with one hand and apply your polishing regimen to the spine of the book. Use a very light touch. This area is weaker because of book-opening allowances the spine makes to hold the book together. The application should be made everywhere, including the edges where the book cover folds against the spine.
- 5
  
  A carefully-maintained leather binding can last for centuries.
  
  Wipe the book all over for one last round and then let sit out for a day to thoroughly "dry" before replacing back in the bookshelf with other books. Consider sliding a piece of thin paper between the book and where it rests against another book. Consider encasing your book cover in a plastic cover to help with maintaining the leather conditioning for longer periods of time.

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