Help with Antique Baseball (I think I killed it)

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Posted By: ZCollects

Looking for some advice, looks like I screwed up my baseball pretty bad. I've posted this on other sites but figured this was a good place too. I have a game-used Official AL Harridge baseball that had a thick coat of lacquer. I stripped most of the lacquer but I couldn't get the shellac from inside the laces and some spots.

Then I decided to try and get it off the stamping, and I was very careful. I sampled one letter on the last line and it tore it right off (U.S.A. is now U.S.). Lesson learned, but now I have this fugly looking thing. It looked 10X better shellacked. I later tried to sand down over the Reach logo very lightly. I'm a moron. Started to wear the logo off a bit.

So I'm thinking I should reapply lacquer and try to even it out. Any recommendations on how to match the current color? Any other potential fixes to make it look half decent again? Check the pic, and thanks for looking. I probably stripped the surface coating that was colored by toning or mud rub, so I don't see how any new lacquer coating will match it without more natural toning and mud, or some staining product.

I'm an idiot/
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Posted By: William

OUCH! Did you use lacquer thinner or alcohol to take it off or were you scraping/sanding it off? Whatever you did, I agree, it looks horrible. Forget about matching the color with a new coat. It takes years to yellow and when you overlap the edges there will be a distinct line.

I've never tried this, and I wouldn't otherwise, however, since it's a total loss, I'd try the denatured alcohol route and cross my fingers and pray that it doesn't remove the ink in the stamping. Alcohol is used to remove lacquer and shellac from furniture. It's not good stuff so wear some quality chemical resistant gloves. Make long clean strokes and rotate your rag after each stroke to prevent rubbing the shellac into the leather. Good luck.

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Posted By: ZCollects

Thank you for the tip. I will try that if I don't find a safer solution first. I may look into dying the rest of the ball to match, or mud rubbing it first. Might practice on some cheap balls I have.

All I used to remove this was tape. Plain Scotch tape, stuck it on directly and ripped it off. It has worked for me to remove other problem areas on baseballs without much trouble, but I should have known better here.

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Posted By: William

Try the alcohol first. It evaporates in seconds and shouldn't hurt the leather. Dying, or trying to add color to it using other means will be a total write-off. The horse hide is bone dry at this point. You'll never get an even tone across the leather or through the shellac. Never mind the damage that you'll do to the stitching.