Please Help Me Salvage These Hand Tooled Boots - Dye/paint?

[scagle21]

New here, hope I'm posting under the right subforum,

I'm afraid I have ruined these, any help greatly appreciated!!

I'm currently living in Indonesia, and had some custom boots made and shipped to me. I ordered 4 pairs of boots from a boot maker in Bandung. one of them was hand tooled. The other boots came out extremely well, but they did not color the hand tooled boots like I asked.

Here is a picture of the boots as received.

So, I sent the boots back. Here is the final product.

Only problem the paint started to rub off. as in this picture

I tried kiwi liquid shoe polish to color in the spots, but this only took off more paint. I eventually rubbed the boots until all the paint that wasn't going to stay adhered was off. Then I used black shoe polish to color over. didn't look to great.

Now, knowing nothing about leather, dying, etc, I decided it would be a good idea to try and remove the black with the idea that I could re-dye them or re-paint them. I used fingernail polish.

Now they look like this!!!

I'm at a loss as to what to do now. I would have like to re-dye the bottoms cognac. After reading some posts on this forum, I'm getting the picture that I can't dye over another color and I won't be able to get the black off. I would like to be able to get a sheridan style or antique look....something that shows some contrast.....either cognac, or black at this point.

Can anyone tell me how I can make these boots not a total waste of money or a waste of the time that the craftsman put into tooling these?! should i just repaint the bottoms black and use a deglazer first? or is it possible to dye a cognac color over the leather as it is? If I paint the bottoms solid black, should I use acrylic or latex and is there any type of paint that would offer some sort of contrast so you can still see the hand tooling?

ANY help is truly appreciated!!!!

Thank you!

Edited February 14, 2014 by scagle21

[electrathon]

You do have a mess. It is really hard to answer to much from just the pictures but I will give it a shot. In order to do anything you will need to strip off whatever you can. Your only real chance is to go black, it usually covers all. So deglaze, dye black, refinish. The worst that can happen is they will get ugly, that has already happened.

[scagle21]

Thanks for the advice. just to be clear, I should dye, not paint? Would deglaze, then paint work better? I'm a Leather NOOB, Can you recommend which products to use for the dye and the finish? I'll have to get deglazer, dye, and finish shipped over to Indonesia.

Thanks!

[camano ridge]

Paint will probably peel. Like electrathon said remove asmuch as you can use good qualit dy. If it is paint you may be able to remove a good bit of it. Try denatured alcahol if you can get it. rum the heck out of painted areas to remove as much as possible. The alcahol may be cheaper and easier to get. The only advantage to paint like cova color is that it is thicker and will hide things better, however it may flake off. When you get it claened up as much as you can try dying if it does not get the look you want then you can still try painting.

[Dwight]

When in doubt about paint or dye, . . . always dye first. If that is not what you wanted, . . . you can always go back and paint over it.

You cannot dye over paint.

May God bless,

Dwight

[scagle21]

Thanks for all the advice. Tried to order some dye and deglazer from Angelus, but they cannot ship overseas due to federal regulations. I will have to go to Singapore and see what I can find at the local shoe repair shops.