tkillian

Thank you for the ideas. I will try the neatsfoot oil. The dye really seemed to soak into the leather. The only difference with finishing is the first sample piece was buffed. Thanks again for the input.

The scap and sheath leather are from the same piece. The leather has been sitting in my basement so maybe it has dried out, but I do leave all my leather down there and haven't had this happen before. Thank you for the responses, I appreciate other sets of eyes on this issue.

I was doing some leatherwork for the local scout troup and I was using dye and leather donated by a leather shop. In the picture you can see my first dye test on the left, where I stamped a scrap of leather and tested the dye. Everything looked great and was what I expected. About three weeks later I was ready to dye the sheaths I had made and the dye came out completely different as you can see on the right of the photo. The test piece was two coats and the actual sheath was about 4 coats, the leather just keeps soaking up the dye. Does anyone have an idea of what might of happened?

Thank you for the help, it sold so fast I didn't even have a chance to look at it.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributes to this forum. I have been lurking here for awhile trying to chase down a starter sewing machine for leather work. I have a chance to purchase a Consew 120 but I have been unable to find any information on this type of machine. Any advice on whether this machine would be good to start with, how thick of leather it could sew, a link to a manual or website information, and if I can get parts for it anywhere would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.