Vinegaroon On Cased Or Uncased Leather?

[Shacknasty]

Great forum filled with a lot of valuable information. I hope to contribute in some way. I have seen a lot of well-executed leatherwork by some obviously talented people and find the level of quality to be inspiring.

My question is fairly simple. Should the vinegaroon be applied to the leather when it is dry? It made a rich black on my test pieces, but I wanted to hear from the experts.

I remember using this method as a kid on some small leather pieces. I think I found the info in a book by Lester Griswold.

[TwinOaks]

You can apply it to wet or dry leather, it will do the same, but on wet leather, it just takes longer to dry. I've found I can skip the step of casing first if I'm molding something, and just douse w/ the 'roon, blot off the excess, and go to molding. If there's any carving involved, I case, carve, then apply the vinegaroon.

One thing I have done as a pretreatment for 'roon, is to 'case' the leather with a strong black tea, just to add some extra tannins to the leather for a stronger reaction.

[Shacknasty]

That's exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks TO! I am gonna experiment with the black tea as a prep method and see how much it affects the color.

[katsass]

Great forum filled with a lot of valuable information. I hope to contribute in some way. I have seen a lot of well-executed leatherwork by some obviously talented people and find the level of quality to be inspiring.

My question is fairly simple. Should the vinegaroon be applied to the leather when it is dry? It made a rich black on my test pieces, but I wanted to hear from the experts.

I remember using this method as a kid on some small leather pieces. I think I found the info in a book by Lester Griswold.

I do just as TwinOaks does.....except that I don't do much (if any) tooling, carving, stamping etc anymore.. Ma Kat likes her cup o tea in the mornings so the stuff is easily available. I brew up a STRONG batch, allow to cool, and dunk the item into the dark stuff, allow to permeate and then into the 'roon. Works great. Mike