CitizenKate

My pleasure, sir. That should get you started. And I second Leatheroo's suggestions about all the great free info on airbrushing there is out on the web. And about taking it apart and cleaning. Kate

Marlon asked earlier about techniques for shading edges with an airbrush. Here's a quick series of photos I put together to show how to do that. It's also quite easy to do, even for someone without a lot of airbrushing experience. (Sorry about the quality of the photos - I was too lazy to set up the tripod to do this series, and was holding the camera in one hand while I worked with the other. Bad idea - won't do it again. Anyway...) I just used a piece of badly abused scrap for this demo. To begin, I'm putting a thin line of color around the very edge of the part. This can be done for one or more passes, depending upon how dark you want the shading. Then, start spraying a gradually wider pattern... ...and wider. The color will be darkest around the edges, and gradually and smoothly fade towards the center. If you want a little more darkness around the edges, to give it almost a burnt or even charred appearance, add a thin line around the edges of your color with something darker mixed in. I mixed a few drops of black dye in with my tan. Finished. If you use antique, make it darker. Kate

Also, forgot to mention earlier, if you haven't bought a holder for your airbrush yet, here's a possible alternative: I just bought a pair of plain wardrobe hooks and mounted them to my bench offset from each other to keep the color cup level when resting in it. I think it ran me all of a couple of bucks. Kate

That works a lot better than what I have to do. Just wish I had a window next to my bench. Kate

You need a respirator that will filter organic vapors, such as this one: The particle filters will not protect you from solvent vapors. It's not as much of a concern with water-based dyes, but I don't want to breath anything but clean air, so I use the respirator even with them. When I can, I open a window or door and get the fan blowing towards my work area. In the winter, I just crack the door open and turn up the fan a little higher. The ideal thing would be to get a bench-top spray booth (something like this), which is what I plan to do, eventually. Then I can keep the door shut and throw away the respirator. Kate

The photos have been added to my previous post. Kate

Great, spraying a wash down is about the easiest thing to do with an airbrush. But to get used to the dual-action control, try this: After hooking up the brush and turning up the air pressure (I usually use around 20-25lbs. for spraying larger areas), hold the brush in front of a piece of scrap leather and press the trigger straight down. If the brush is adjusted correctly, no dye should come out, just air. Notice that the harder you press the trigger down, the more air comes out. You can adjust for more or less air as you spray. Trigger is neutral. Trigger is down; very small movement; only air coming out. Now, with the trigger pressed down (and air coming out), slowly pull back on the trigger. You'll see a little stream of dye come out that gradually widens as the trigger move back. Trigger is back; air and dye comes out (assuming there is any dye in the cup). Now, try moving the airbrush across the scrap piece, and starting and stopping the dye stream as it moves across. You should get a line that starts very thin, becomes thick in the middle, then thins down to nothing at the end. Try this a few times, and that will help you get the hang of how the brush works. The more control you get, the smoother, straighter, and more even you should be able to make the lines. (You can tell I'm a little rusty, since I've been doing mostly hand brushing in the last year.) To do a solid wash, hold the tip about 4" from the work, use a fairly wide stream (I open mine up all the way), and spray in light, slightly overlapping passes. Use multiple passes over an area; apply the dye in amounts the leather can absorb right away. Otherwise, you'll get dripping. Working across one "row" in a circular motion. Notice the 90 deg. angle of the brush to the work. The next row slightly overlaps the previous. How it looks after one pass. The color is very light (this is black dye I'm working with here), and a little uneven. Not to worry, the following passes will even it all out. I like to turn my work with each pass. Just finishing the final pass. It's quite dark now, and nice and even. One other thing: I hope you are using a respirator when you spray, especially if you're using any spirit-based dyes. I've added some photos of some of this stuff... more soon... Kate

Congratulations, Marlon! I use my airbrush for lots of different applications. What kind of spraying are you interested in doing? Kate

I sure do, as I'm sure several others here do, as well. But to avoid hijacking Dwight's thread, let's start another thread on this topic. Kate

Larger applicator - that works, too. Or he could just switch to non-flammable water-based dyes. (I'm just kidding with Randy, since I know how much he hates water-based dyes.) I actually do like the oil dyes when I'm dying something a solid color, and Randy's method works great in situations when you need a solid color wash on something large and can't spray. For those of you who can spray, there are reasons to consider it, aside from making it very easy to get any dye to go on very evenly. One is that it makes it easy to do shading effects with the color (such as you see here on one of David's excellent motorcycle seats). I have found that this can also be done by wiping it around the edges with a rag or some other large applicator, but it's a lot more work doing it that way. If you're not into that kind of look, that's cool. Just something to consider. Kate

Enlarge it and make it a belt buckle? Use them as decorative rivets? (The rest of you take it from here...) Freak, you are truly an ORIGINAL. (I guess that's what makes you a FREAK, but in my opinion, that's a GOOD thing.) Kate

I've taken it off with water before, in order to re-do the antique job. For re-dying, you might want to go over the piece with deglazer as well. Kate

LOL Yeah, I was thinking yesterday I bet that old screwdriver has some stories to tell. Those eyes are incredibly realistic-looking. Kate

Awwww... that is so sweet. Good for you! Kate

I second Tim's opinion about spraying vs. dipping. If you plan to do a lot of these projects, may I also suggest a small single-action spray gun with a small $100-125 compressor. That would be the same cost as about 25 Pre-val sprayer refills. Kate

That is turning out beautiful! I like your choice of backgrounds for it, too. Looking forward to seeing more progress... Kate

After a comment like that, I guess I've got something to prove. And that is, Eco-Flo, like any other dye, needs to be sealed to give it a pleasing, finished appearance, and keep it from bleeding. And some of us actually like the stuff, perish forbid, because it doesn't fade in the sunlight like spirit dyes do. I just did a quick demo using a couple of pieces of scrap and some Eco-Flo coal black. The first photo shows one swatch (on the left) with just dye applied, and a second swatch that has the same dye application, but has also been buffed and sealed with a wax finish. (I don't use any of the acrylic finishes any more because they don't do enough to stop moisture. But that was a preference I chose when I was still using alcohol and oil-based dyes, so it has nothing to do with any differences between alcohol or water-based dyes.) You can see the swatch that has not been finished has a kind of chalky metallic sheen to it, and it looks rather washed-out, even though the leather surface is fully saturated with color. The swatch that was finished has a nice deep black color to it, and a nice rich surface texture. For the second photo, I took the two swatches and poured water on them. I caught the water that ran off the swatches onto some white paper towels so you could see how much color bled off. As you can see, the unfinished piece had quite a bit of bleeding. The finished piece had very little, and what little there was came from the edge where I missed it with the finish. You can see the water beading up on the finished piece, whereas the unfinished piece absorbed any that did not run off. Those water beads remained until they evaporated without causing any water spots on the finish or the dye. If you prefer other types of dye, that's your choice. In my opinion, they all have trade-offs you have to consider, but they all can be used effectively when applied and treated certain ways. Kate

What I got was an outrageously fun day with my family. It seems the older we all get, the more playful we are. It's like we're doing the opposite of growing up. This year, aside from all the traditional gaming we enjoy, we all got to be a rock band. Everyone from our 13-year-old niece to our 56-year-old brother was in on the act. Rock Band 2, that is! It was so bad I laughed until there were tears in my eyes! Especially when we tried to do Beastie Boys... What'cha what'cha watcha waaaaaaaant! LOL!!! Kate

I'd love to do another PIF event! Count me in. Kate

entiendo, I am sorry I do not have the answer to your dilemma. But there are some very good braiders who are members here, so I am very confident you will get some help soon. Kate

I wait for it to dry before doing anything else to it. Kate

When I put on any dye (spirit or water-based) I get a kind of chalky surface residue, which sometimes has an iridescent quality to it (as shown in your photos). I usually buff it off before putting a sealing finish on it. The finish usually restores the luster of the leather and gives the color a more saturated appearance. In the case of the coal black, I've always gotten a nice solid, deep black color once it's buffed and finished. Kate

Well said, Sir Cowboy! Kate

Couple of thoughts here, Damon... Whenever I am creating a pattern, I first test the pattern by making a quick "prototype" out of posterboard or heavy paper. The parts are stapled together, rather than sewn, and then I check to see if the pattern is going to serve its purpose. This way, you don't invest a lot of leather and time before finding out your pattern doesn't quite fit. As for how much to allow, it depends on how much of a seam allowance you use, the size and shape of the item you are making a case for. But the "rule of thumb" I follow generally falls along the lines of: Actual size of the piece that is to be covered plus 1/4" - 3/8" on all sewn sides (depending on how thick the item and the leather is) plus the seam allowance That usually gets me pretty well into the ball park on the first try in most cases. That's if you're just cutting and sewing. As Greybeard suggested, wet-molding is also a good option. The only thing I would suggest if you chose that approach, since what you're covering is fairly cubic-shaped, would be to consider using a piece of material with the exact same dimensions as the item to be covered, rather than the item itself. You can cut wood or plastic into a shape to form the leather over. Plexiglas or wood can be cut to size fairly easily. Covering the block with some kind of releasing agent (such as wax) will help when extracting the item from the finished case, since the leather is bound to shrink when it dries, and it may be difficult to remove otherwise. The books Al Stohlman wrote on making cases has great info on how to do this. Kate

Very nice, Tom! The carving is some of your best I've seen yet. Kate