Fiebing's Color Swatches

[TheThiefPrince]

I'm fairly new to the art but feel as though I am picking it up relatively quickly. One of my only gripes is that without buying every single bottle of Fiebing's Professional Oil Dye and creating my own swatch, I will never know the difference between light brown and saddle tan (which if anyone of you have looked at Fiebing's color chart will clearly see what I mean) (enclosed below)

My question is, does anyone out there have all the oil dyes to create nice, evenly layered swatches (that I could obviously purchase from you) orrr, would anyone be interested in obtaining something like this?

I know for some, obtaining every color isn't a big deal (considering you can pick up a 4oz bottle for $7.00 on eBay) but for me, spending $112 buying them all in order to determine which colors I would like to keep is far from reality for this poor college student.

Anyways, as always, I'd love your guys' input. Or help. Whatever you can lend me!

Thanks

Trey

[TomG]

I've got the Fiebings Black, Green, Red, Royal, Saddle and a few others in oil, and the Light Blue, Medium Brown, Red, Green, Purple, Navy, Yellow, and a few others in regular spirit dye.

I have never had any one of them dye leather those colors straight out of the bottle. They are always darker, whether I use a sponge, dauber, or dip dye on the leather.

I'm a bit swamped right now, or I'd make you some swatch strips. If no one else helps you with them in the next week or so, PM me and we can see where I stand time-wise.

Tom

[TheThiefPrince]

I've got the Fiebings Black, Green, Red, Royal, Saddle and a few others in oil, and the Light Blue, Medium Brown, Red, Green, Purple, Navy, Yellow, and a few others in regular spirit dye.

I have never had any one of them dye leather those colors straight out of the bottle. They are always darker, whether I use a sponge, dauber, or dip dye on the leather.

I'm a bit swamped right now, or I'd make you some swatch strips. If no one else helps you with them in the next week or so, PM me and we can see where I stand time-wise.

Tom

Thanks Tom! I really appreciate it! I wasn't really anticipating anyone replying, especially this fast! I'm more interested in the oil dyes, as I have heard that the spirit dyes are more work than they are worth, but I'll take anything I can get!

Trey

Edited November 14, 2014 by TheThiefPrince

[TheThiefPrince]

So, I've been able to hold out on eating lunch for the past couple weeks and was able to scrounge a little extra change as well and purchase a couple more oil dyes; English Bridle, Saddle Tan, and Golden Brown. After testing them all on a couple spare pieces of veg tan I had lying around, what I feared would happen, happened.

My samples of the English Bridle and the Saddle tan came out nearly identical. My lighting is slightly off in the photo I attached, but in person, they're almost the same. Obviously, since I'm on such a tight budget trying to make Christmas gifts for everyone, this is the problem I was trying to avoid, as I could have bought more thread, or at least another dye color.

honestly, the only thing that brings the variances in the two colors out, is the Fiebing's Carnauba Cream. Only then am I able to tell the difference between the two.

I'm still interested in any help you can lend in terms of the other oil dye colors. I even have several more veg tan swatches I could mail you to if that would help.

Trey

[NVLeatherWorx]

If I may suggest, to get the true color out of each one of the colors you might want to apply a coating (not too heavy) of Pure Neatsfoot Oil over the top of your swatches. If you do, you will notice a darkening of the overall product but you will also notice that the haze look goes away and you get a natural glow to the finish; just let it set in for a day before you evaluate the final look. And to be fair to yourself and your customers, you will want to apply the final top coat finish that you plan on using as a standard sealant (Satin Sheen, Resolene, Clear-Lac, Bag Balm w/Atom Wax, etc.) which will give you the overall finished look that they will get. Also keep in mind that every piece of leather you dye will come out looking different due to the way that each cell absorbs the dyes and finishes; this is unavoidable and guaranteed to happen. Using the Oil Dyes is the smartest route to go because the standard dyes will really dry you leather out and shrink the you know what out of it unless you heavily oil it prior to application (which creates a whole different mess to deal with later) and there is no need to have the colors such as the reds, blues, etc.; just use the natural tones (and black of course). If you ever have to do some color detail dyeing such as floral or figure carvings, then you want to use the Spirit Dyes as they are the best for that and then you only need the basic colors as you can create all of the custom shades through blending (and there are books on that topic when you decide it is time to learn more).

I have been working with their dyes since I started my education/training process in this trade (over 40 years ago now) and I can tell you that you should only keep the basic colors on hand as the in between colors can also be created if needed but they are not common nor popular. The basics that I have always maintained are: Black, Light Brown, Dark Brown, Saddle Tan, and Mahogany as these are the common colors that you will find out there in overwhelming use and you can create the in between shades of browns by blending and/or thinning. Even better is the fact that you can also use the Fiebing's Antique Paste's as an additive to the dyes to create even more unique shades and colors.

You can drop me a line anytime for a question if you need to.

[johnv474]

Not to revive a 4-year old thread, but if others stumble across this post like I did then here is a photo of all the Pro Dyes next to each other.  The color charts are not accurate.

Instagram picture from Landwerlen - Pro Dyes