Nowandagain

Working on becoming a middling leather worker again (more on that if I ever get around to writing my profile) but definitely a lousy photographer. I’ll see if my wife can take some shots of the cuff links.

I wish my basket weave came out 1/2 this well. Nicely done and nice even hand stitching. I stopped using a sponge for casing. Using a spray bottle seems to give me better results, even without bagging the leather or leaving it overnight.

A friend needed a cover for a monthly study guide he subscribes to. The guide doesn’t have even a soft cover- just 200+ pages of newsprint. He asked for a strap stitched at the top and bottom to hold the guide as an insert. I had some black 1-2 ounce nubuck that I thought would be perfect. Unfortunately the dye kept coming off on my hands! Not good, especially since he usually wears white shirts. Remind not to buy leather from India again. Bick 4 didn’t stop the bleeding, so I waxed the cover with paraffin. Success! For the closure extension & the lacing I skipped the Bick 4 and went straight to paraffin, which resulted in a higher gloss that contrasts nicely with the rest of the project. Instead of stitching, I used stair step lacing to fasten a reinforcement strip down the inside center and used one end of the lacing for the loop to hold the study guide in place. The other end became the bookmark. Then I used an 2 strand double-X lacing to add a cover extension to keep it from coming open in his briefcase. Your thoughts (other than ‘wow he’s a long winded cuss & a lousy photographer’)?

Klara I’ve now tried both acrylic & alcohol based markers. They both work pretty well but the alcohol does a better job of letting the grain show through. The acrylic is more opaque.

Thanks for the tip. Apparently they do ship to Israel. What did you mix the powder with? Does it come with instructions? How did you apply it? What were your results?

In honor of Passover, I made these cuff links in the form of hand made (round) matzoh. I tooled some veg tan vachetta to create the texture, used a diamond stitching punch to simulate the perforations, then colored them with a combination of acrylic and alcohol-based markers. The edges were singed to simulate the burnt edges of the matzoh, then burnished with Tokanol. Not bad for a one-afternoon project.

LittleF I’ll have to try dipping next time. I applied it generously with a foam paintbrush today. After several minutes to an hour, the piece turned a satisfying black. The piece is now very stiff and dry. I plan to do the back tomorrow. Any suggestions whether Otter Butter, Bick 4 or oil would be best to recondition the leather?

Yesterday I applied a few drops to one corner & got a very light gray. Maybe using a foam brush or dipping the leather might give me a better result. In any case I’m going to let the mix sit another week.

I just started my first batch, using your recipe. Wish me luck! Any guesses whether this will work on natural color veg tan if a few spots were previously colored with alcohol art markers- vermilion, burgundy & green? I’m hopeful it will blacken the colored areas as well.

Kara, there are two levels of problems with shipping here by Amazon. Some vendors do not ship here, others do. But the second are government import regulations. I'm wondering if the government considers leather dye environmentally sensitive because of the VOCs. I've also noticed that no one will ship contact cement here via Amazon, perhaps for the same reason. Knives are another sensitive issue. No one will ship a skiving knife here because Israel is very fussy over what knives are allowed in the country.

I had a similar problem some years ago with yellow dye bleeding off the grain side of some latigo. Neat-Lac did a good job of keeping it from happening again.

In addition to the good advice that was already posted, what weight leather are you using? Lightweight veg tan often refuses to take an impression from larger stamps such as basket weave stamps. A tip I learned from a Don Gonzales video: if your leather is under 6 ozs (that’s my suggested thickness, not his) try putting a flexible cutting board between your leather and your granite or other stamping surface. That lets your leather take a deeper impression.

I’ve seen them strung as beads to make bracelets, necklaces or earrings but I’ve never tried it myself.

Trailblazer, thanks. Sadly no access to pistachio hulls or acorns either, but there’s lots of red wine here. (Sadly I had to give up alcohol this year for medical reasons, but they still sell it.) Does it matter whether you use dry or (ugh!) sweet wine? Have you had better luck with any particular type of grape? When you have used it, do you concentrate the wine first in anyway, or just use it straight from the bottle? Soak it, or swab it on? any tips you can give me would be great!

“Hi, I live in Oklahoma, and there is a pecan orchard a few miles from home. I purchased a 25 or 50 pound bag of Pecan Hulls, a lingerie bag to boil them in, and now I have a dark brown dye. Walnut hulls also work very well. “ Unfortunately I have no source here in Israel for either type of hull.

Mixing vinegar & steel wool into the coffee/ketchup experiment didn’t work any better than it probably tastes. It came out blotchy, uneven, black around the edges, light brown in the middle, with pin-prick black spots. Back to the drawing board.

People who assume that because something is easily available in the U.S., it must be available worldwide, then, after you explain it’s unavailable in your country, respond by telling you where to find it in the U.S. I should hasten to say I haven’t encountered that at this forum.

Yeah, I remember those from the U.S. No Walmarts or other big box stores here & the fabric stores, supermarkets & sundry stores don’t seem to carry fabric die. You can sometimes find food coloring but I haven’t tried it yet.

I am not having breakfast at your house! If all it takes to scare you off is a little ketchup, I probably shouldn’t tell you I added some white vinegar & steel wool to the experiment. (Of course if it were a real experience, I would have measured, so it’s more in the nature of playing around with it.)

Don Gonzalez recommends sealing the olive oil. Tan-Kote (which he uses) and similar products are hard to find here. Would Bic 4 work as a sealant? If not, any idea what happens if I don't seal it?

I can’t seem to complete my profile. I have added what appears to be all of the mandatory information and a lot of optional information. But according to leather worker.net, my profile is still 0% complete, with no clue as to what I need to do in order to complete it. But according to leather worker.net, my profile is still 0% complete, with no clue as to what I need to do in order to complete it. The information I entered shows up when I access my profile, whether on my phone or my computer. But when I click on update my profile, I still get the same message that my profile is 0% complete. What am I doing wrong? What else do I need to do? Thanks.

I’m thinking of applying it to the both sides of some thin nubuck to see if it will add body & give the look of smooth grain, to use in some wallets.

I used to do a lot of this in the 70s. Of course, the Ecoflow and similar water based dyes were not yet available, so these techniques apply to spirit dyes. Old tshirts work fine for wrapping the block, as do other rags, but I would make sure to use 100% cotton. Synthetics or blends may not absorb the dye evenly. Of course, the background color (eg cordovan or tan)should be applied first, using whatever method you prefer for conventional dying - daubers, sponge, dipping etc. Make sure the base color is thoroughly dry and then wipe the surface briskly with a clean cloth or scrap sheepskin to remove any excess. Now apply the accent color (eg medium brown) to the rag that’s wrapped around your block. I always tried to get the rag as dry as possible before touching the accent color to the project. Blot the wrapped rag with paper towels as you described, but after that, try rubbing the block lightly but rapidly over some newspaper until the dye trails on the newspaper are barely damp. Then I block dye the project, using a light touch and rapid back and forth movement. If I wanted certain areas (eg toward the edges) to be darker, I would go over those areas again as needed until the desired affect was achieved. If there is a crease or other solid border, you can block dye that area solid brown (or whatever color you’re using) just by going back and forth over that area repeatedly. I never used any kind of resist. The stamp impressions always showed up in the background color so long as I used a light touch and avoided oversaturating the rag. Once everything is thoroughly dry, wipe briskly with a clean rag to remove any excess and apply resoline, tan kote, or other non-oil based finish of your choice. Hope this helps.

I had seen this but I have no source for walnut skins, only shells.

Thanks to everyone who answered. I have tried suntanning veg tan but never got beyond golden tan, even with several days in the sunshine - and the sun here is STRONG. But I did not try moistening the leather first, much less remoistening. I did see Don Gonzalez mention olive oil. A lot of people say that olive oil will rot leather, but if he says it's not a problem, that's good for me. Black walnut trees unfortunately aren't found anywhere that I can access. More advice is of course welcome!