Chavez Report post Posted October 16, 2012 Hi! Does anyone have any tips on carving dark leather (very dark brown; black, etc)? Are there any ways to make the carving stand out a bit more, eg a light antique perhaps? I've tried the search but couldn't find anything =( Thank you for your help! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DoubleC Report post Posted October 16, 2012 Hi Chavez. Just went through that myself, and bought a tan antique to go over a dark brown. Didn't work Not for me anyway, but what did work was not forcing the dye into all the cracks and crevices which gave the carving a lighter color on it's own. I really like the effect and so did my customer. I'm sure others will have more help on this. Cheryl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chavez Report post Posted October 16, 2012 Hi Cheryl, I'm actually thinking of carving bridle butts that have been finished & dyed already. My idea was to strip the finish off, carve, put new finish on and end up with a carved strap. This way I think there will be hardly any colour change. Alternative would be to try and dye a blank strip to match the colour of the rest of the bridle - imho, an almost impossible job. But anyhow, any way to emphasize tooling would be great. Would highlighter work? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DoubleC Report post Posted October 16, 2012 Hey Chavez, can't answer about highlighter. My choices this month was that, which I'd never used and antique which I had. As you can see should have tried the highlighter, LOL. I've heard they're easy to use but not so much about what they'll actually DO. Hope someone can step in and tell you. Cheryl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cyberthrasher Report post Posted October 17, 2012 I've never worked with bridle leathers but I'm not sure how well this will work out. You may be able to strip off the top finish ok, but I'm not sure if the bridle leather will take tooling that well (depends on how it will accept moisture). If you're looking to actually strip off the color, that will be next to impossible in my experience. If all else fails, you can always test and see what happens Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rainy0902 Report post Posted February 23, 2013 Hi, Tooling on dark veg-taned leather is easy, but make the carving outstanding is difficult. If the leather is dark brown, you can still use black antique. But if the carving is on black leather,I think you can only use lighter antique on the project with only knife carving lines. For sheridan style carving. Try to carve deeper and use a round spoon modeling tool poking the back of the leather to make the flower and leaf more stereoscopic. Here is a picture from a japanese magazine, Hope it is helpful. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
St8LineGunsmith Report post Posted March 14, 2013 I recently bought a side of harness/bridle leather from SLC and it tools very well in fact I am planning on making some brazzos Jack shoulder rigs from it with tooling. I is my thoughts to resist the surface so just the tooled area would take the finish. the eco flo antiquing gel should work well for highlighting the tooling of the already finished Harness leather. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
otaypanky Report post Posted March 29, 2013 In my experience, bridle is not well suited for carving. It's infused with extra fats, tallows, and waxes. Veg tanned is processed specifically to kind of harden and hold the tooling if it's been cased correctly Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
