Hi guys,
my name is Javier im from Paraguay. I love leather and have been hand tooling veg tanned leather for two years. Recently ive become good enough to start selling my products. My first product is a backpack that has a patch of veg tanned leather with a Mandala hand tooled in it. In order to make the colour look like the rest of the leather of the backpack I use 2 products, Tandy's Eco Flo Hi Lite Stain to penetrate the leather and colour it (not a fan of Eco Flo but it does the job) and after this I use Fiebings Antique Finish to highlight the hand tooling. The end result after this is magnificent (I will upload photos tomorrow since now at nighttime its not worth it.), the BIG PROBLEM im having is making it waterproof. I dont want to sell a backpack that is only some drops of water away from getting completely ruined, I have sold some already and im hoping they dont get ruined soon enough and I get complaints. To waterproof the veg tanned part of my backpack im using Resolene, which COMPLETELY takes away the glossy nice finish I get after aplying both products I mentioned before and polishing with my horsehair brush. I have applied resolene 24 hours after the chemical process (maybe its too early?). My big questions are:
1) How do I protect my piece of veg tanned leather from completely ruining itself with little water? I had both problems with water ruining the piece dropping from the front part of the backpack (where the hand tooled mandala is) and the backside, which I believe is called the grain side. I need to completely seal both sides to make my backpack durable? Is it even worth it?
2) If some drops fall from the zip of the backpack, where the stitching meets the zip and the veg tanned leather, it also completely ruins the product, so I need to seal the edges of the veg tanned leather as well?
3) When applying resolene with a cloth/sponge it gets stained with the finish of the leather, meaning its taking away either the Fiebings or the Eco Flo. I used to paint on veg tanned leather with Angelus Leather Paint and if I didnt let the paint dry for days it usually happened, the sponge got stained and the paint dilluted. Is Resolene such a harsh chemical or am I just applying it to quickly (24 hours)?
4) Im uploading a picture of my backpack. My main problem is making the veg tanned part of it (hand tooled part) looking like the rest of the leather of the backpack. I dont believe that Eco Flo is ideal but I have tryed Dyes and they are so hard to apply evenly. Eco Flo is easier to apply but very limited colour options. Any advice will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your tips, this forum once saved my hand painted leather items, im sure I will find a solution to my problem this time as well.
Cheers
Javier
