kates

Before I saw your post about oxalic acid, I tried using diluted phosphoric acid which I already had on hand. It worked! Is oxalic acid less harsh than phosporic acid? I am a little worried about how it will miscolor the leather though, but its much better than it was. So if it was iron mixing with the tannin, how do I prevent this in the future? I have no idea how iron specks could have got on the leather. I didn't see any while I was tooling it. Thanks for all of your help.

I just finished tooling some leather pieces. As they were starting to curl up a bit, I stacked them up on top of each other and placed heavy weight on them overnight. The next day I noticed dozens of small black dots all over the leather! I'm assuming it is mildew. How do I get them out? This is for a client who wants natural looking leather, so staining is not an option. So far I have tried wiping with soapy water, diluted bleach water and saddle soap. Nothing has worked. Help!!

Well I don't like the idea at all that it's toast. There has to be some thing I can do. I have already tried to go darker, hoping to cover up the splotches. However the splotches were caused by the Neatlac I think and consequently the Neatlac won't allow the darker stain to color the leather darker (in some places). The darker stain just makes MOST of the leather darker and leaves the lighter splotches light making the blotchiness even more pronounced. That's why I was thinking I needed to completely removed the Neatlac, then I could start with a leather piece that would accept the stain fully. I will try to get a picture uploaded. Thanks for all the advise.

Please help! I'm kind of desperate. It's 4 days until Christmas and I just finished tooling a beautiful leather strap for a present. I was so pleased with how it turned out......then I started the finish process and now it appears ruined. I first put one coat of Neatsfoot Oil, then one coat of Neatlac, then multiple coats of Eco-Flo Stain. The moment I started staining I knew something wasn't right. It appears like the Neatlac wasn't put on correctly as it won't allow the stain to penetrate in some areas and now the entire piece is really blotchy all over. I'm pretty sure I need to strip everything off and start over, but not sure how to do that. Unfortunately now I have a bunch of stain coats on the the leather trying to camouflage the blotchiness, but all it did was make parts of the leather really dark and the blotchy parts stayed the same lighter color (they can't absorb more stain from the Neatlac I think). It looks absolutely awful!! Please help! Will deglazer take off this many coats of stuff or do I need something more powerful?