I discovered quite by accident that my no-big-deal Brother Inkjet printer will accept and print on thin veg tan, in this case 3oz.
I cut a piece the size of sheet of paper, fed it in via the paper tray and to my amazement it fed the leather "sheet" through no problem (well there was a few internal groans). I then figure that the ink probably needed to dry and tested to see if it would smudge. Nope, it was already dry with the ink absorbed well into the leather.
The image was substantially lighter, however, less saturated than it would have been on paper. I thought about just running it through again which I often do for t-shirt transfers but didn't want to press my luck and was planing on making changes to the image anyway. This was just a spur of the moment "I wonder...."sort of thing.
So I made my changes, saturated the digital image instead, and fed through a new leather sheet and the result was quit impressive. Still not as saturated as paper would be, but the image was sharp and clear. I then sprayed it with Saddle Lac to protect it.
Next I wondered if the image would hold, whether, for example, sunlight might fade it out. I don't know why it would, but this was all new territory so I set it out in direct sunlight for several hours.
The colors did change, but not because of the ink fading but because of the veg tan getting a suntan which created a darker underlay which muted the colors somewhat, but the image was still sharp and distinct.
Then I went back over the image with a sharpie to accentuate borders and certain features and re-dyed using a close approximation of the two major colors in the piece, English Bridle for the land areas and Kelly Green for the Sea areas. Both were quite diluted. There wasn't any problem in the leather absorbing the dye even though there was a layer of Saddle Lac. It didn't take long at all, less than 10 minutes and I put another coat of Saddle Lac, and yet another coat 5 minutes after that.
This is a pretty cool discovery for me. Maybe this has been known for some time but I felt like Oppenheimer splitting the atom when I discovered it. Pretty cool stuff and it opens up all sorts of possibilities I'm looking forward to try.
My printer is the equivalent of Brother MFC-J6720D ~ $200 but I'm guessing you could do this with most any inkjet printer. Anybody else try this?
I cut a piece the size of sheet of paper, fed it in via the paper tray and to my amazement it fed the leather "sheet" through no problem (well there was a few internal groans). I then figure that the ink probably needed to dry and tested to see if it would smudge. Nope, it was already dry with the ink absorbed well into the leather.
The image was substantially lighter, however, less saturated than it would have been on paper. I thought about just running it through again which I often do for t-shirt transfers but didn't want to press my luck and was planing on making changes to the image anyway. This was just a spur of the moment "I wonder...."sort of thing.
So I made my changes, saturated the digital image instead, and fed through a new leather sheet and the result was quit impressive. Still not as saturated as paper would be, but the image was sharp and clear. I then sprayed it with Saddle Lac to protect it.
Next I wondered if the image would hold, whether, for example, sunlight might fade it out. I don't know why it would, but this was all new territory so I set it out in direct sunlight for several hours.
The colors did change, but not because of the ink fading but because of the veg tan getting a suntan which created a darker underlay which muted the colors somewhat, but the image was still sharp and distinct.
Then I went back over the image with a sharpie to accentuate borders and certain features and re-dyed using a close approximation of the two major colors in the piece, English Bridle for the land areas and Kelly Green for the Sea areas. Both were quite diluted. There wasn't any problem in the leather absorbing the dye even though there was a layer of Saddle Lac. It didn't take long at all, less than 10 minutes and I put another coat of Saddle Lac, and yet another coat 5 minutes after that.
This is a pretty cool discovery for me. Maybe this has been known for some time but I felt like Oppenheimer splitting the atom when I discovered it. Pretty cool stuff and it opens up all sorts of possibilities I'm looking forward to try.
My printer is the equivalent of Brother MFC-J6720D ~ $200 but I'm guessing you could do this with most any inkjet printer. Anybody else try this?
- Album created by Reegesc
- 0 images
- 18 views