maccarta

You are a most helpful human being I really aprreciate it :-) That makes much more sense to me now knowing you reconditioned with Neatsfoot and that resolene is used as a resist - I was terribly confused, ahh novices haha. So had the order pretty much right but gotta work on the rest. Cool I'll get the casing right and practice the process with some of my good stamps - that made me laugh yes the large flower stamps are shockin I have 2 of the largest one and they're both the same - I was trying to find the exact stamps in the pic I've attached as i'm trying to do a similar pattern and they leave a clear impression but the craftool ones were the closest I could find. Maybe once I case the leather correctly they will be more defined. Sorry, when I said 'if I wanted the impressions to be light' i meant light in colour not light in penetration - I've seen some belts where the impressions are much lighter than the rest of the belt instead of dark - sort of like some of mine turned out but much better. But I won't worry about that at this stage I'll just get the process right to get the impressions dark. Thanks again, i'll let you know how I go!!

Thanks for reply, wow your belt is fantastic!! I've attached pic so you can see the darker bits (I assume this is where the I missed the resist and the antique took) and the lighter stamped areas. So you used resolene where I used Aussie conditioner & Satin Shene - is resolene just a sealer/gloss or does it recondition as well? Or is that what you used the Kiwi polish for at the end? I used the process I did as I'd read you should recondition leather after dying and that you should resist before applying antique so the belt doesn't take on too much of the antique colour - but you didn't resist and yours looks fine. So am I correct in saying to get the dark impressions as you have that I should try the following: dye belt, 2 coats resolene, omit resist, antique using flat damp cloth to wipe off excess on high areas, resolene, then some sort of conditioner - like aussie or kiwi polish? And if I wanted the impressions to be 'light' then I should apply 2 coats of resist after dying to stop the antique penetrating? Cheers.

I apologise if this question has already been answered a million times but I've had a search through some topics and while some cover the finishing process I'm still terribly confused with what I did wrong and would appreciate the knowledge of others on this site. I've done pyrography on belts before which I coloured with eco flo cova paints then antiqued & sealed it - no probs there very happy with result. But recently I tried to finish a belt I had stamped and it was a bit of a disaster. So here's the process I used: Cased/stamped belt Dyed belt with diluted eco flo high-lite stain - saddle tan, using damp cloth Re-conditioned belt with Aussie conditioner (tried olive oil on scrap bit but darkened leather too much so used Aussie as didn't really change colour - not sure if this product is supposed to be used here??) - left it overnight Resisted belt once using satin shene, let dry 4 hours Applied eco flo gel antique medium brown with cloth So there were two issues: Overall the belt came out streaky with some parts darker than others from the antique gel Where I had stamped the belt was inconsistent - some of the indentations from stamps were lighter than the rest of the belt and so stood out - looked quite good, but then some indentations were really dark (assuming from where the antique had taken) - again this looked quite good but only if the whole belt was like this. So I guess I'm wondering if the order I did things was correct, how to ensure antique isn't streaky when applied, and how to get consistent colour where I've stamped? I'm happy to have the stamped areas lighter OR darker as long as they're all the same - not sure how to achieve each of these - maybe I needed to resist twice to enusre all the stamped areas were resisted to make them all lighter?? I need help!!!! Would appreciate advice :-)