Starman

Awesome, thank you...I'll look into these! Excellent! Good to know!

That's where I was headed next. But I'm even less familiar with epoxies so I thought I'd exhaust the 'made for leather glues' possibilities first. Thanks!

The surface of the leather can't have holes or stitches in it. :/

Hey folks, Does anyone have any experience gluing oily or Pull Up leather? Barge cement works as well as a post it note on this leather, so I'm at a loss. Stitching isn't an option. I found something online called 'Leather Glue SB' that says it works on oily and Pull Up leather...anyone have any personal experience with this? Thanks in advance.

Oh Im sure! I've never heard of it before though; I wonder why it's not more well known/sold as a product?

Well, I'll be damned! Not only does it work, apparently its an old trick (image taken from a 2016 facebook post I found)

Hey folks, Im gonna try this later, just to see how it works, and I was wondering if anyone else has tried mixing leather dye with an oil like neatsfoot (or another appropriate oil) and then applying that to the leather? my assumption is--if the dye mixes in the oil--you'll get a more even color mix especially with something like brown or red. It might even give the color a different look. Anyway, just curious if anyone's tried this, or something similar, and how it's worked out? Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm always trying to figure out new and different ways to do things...and not having any real luck with this one....but you never know what other people may have come up with or figured out, especially those who've been doing this for a while.

Hi folks, I'm trying to think outside the box here, and thought I'd see if anyone had any suggestions or solutions they might have come up with themselves. I'm trying to soften a 5-6 oz double shoulder (think of a belt, not the whole hide) to be as soft and pliable as a finished hide, ideally like bison, for example. I know you can use olive oil to soften it up some (I am aware olive oil degrades the leather over time, tho) or neatsfoot oil (although I've tried neetsfoot oil before but it never seems to stop seeping oil) so i thought I'd see if anyone had any other ideas or suggestions. I am aware I'll *never* get a shoulder to have the softness and pliability of bison (and that's not the goal) but any suggestions to at least make the shoulder MORE pliable and softer than it is now, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks you guys!

I wanted to follow up with you guys. I finally got the time to grab some antique dye, and tried it on a small sample I stamped to see how it works. Smoke black, I think. Now I understand how it differs from the regular dye. Its one thing to have it explained to you; its a whole other thing to actually experience it. For me anyway. I get it now. So, in a nutshell it works just like y' all explained it would! The flip side is that it doesn't dye as deeply or effectively as the regular dye, but I guess that's the trade off.

That makes perfect sense...thats gotta be what im looking for! Thank you SO much!!

Thanks, I will! Is the 'antique dye' a different dye than the normal dye one would use? This does sound like how this would be done... Thanks so much!

sorry, that pic is the best I could find :/ Im not sure, tbh, maybe? Im wondering how you dye the deeper tooled areas while leaving the surface relatively untouched?

The look i'm after is a belt that's been well used, so the color on the surface has been worn down/worn off, but leaving the color in the deeper recessed areas. I thought about dying it, then just sanding the surface...but sanding leather doesn't seem like a good idea. Any suggestions on how to approach this? I've attached a really small, horrible pic, but hopefully it coveys what my works may not have. Thanks all! I appreciate the knowledge ya'll share!

Hmmm...lemme see if I can find an image...thanks!