ivanlc

Hi guys. Just to jet you know that what worked in the end was simply moistening the area with water & massaging the indent with my (clean) thumb for a few minutes - gently to avoid any unexpected burnishing. I've then found that if I mix a solution out of Barkeeper's Friend (oxalic acid based cleaner), rub it on the hair side/front side of my pieces (diluting/spreading with a sponge that's sprayed with water, until the whole surface is the same greyish-pink colour) and then I wipe the surface over with jojoba oil, the subsequent dyeing procedure causes the dye to settle evenly across the surface. Thanks for your suggestions, chaps.

Which side of the spoon do I use and do I need to press down hard? What does this actually do wrt the leather?' Just want to understand how it works...

I scribbled a note to myself to remind me of what I'd done to the leather workpiece I was tooling at the time. Sadly, it didn't occur to me to NOT write the note (or st least to not press down so hard) on the post-it note i used, pressing on the leather itself, and it's now left an imprint of what the note said, on the leather. (NOTE: no ink had been transferred to the leather; just the imprint of the pen's tip as it pressed down on the post-it.) Is there any (quick?) way to get rid of this...?

Yes, I did this, but the wax hardens immediately upon removal of heat, plus keeping the leather itself warm isn't easy. I even tried heating wax on my cooker at a low heat to keep the wax pliable (and heating the leather w/ a hair dryer simultaneously), but both kept hardening/cooling before I could apply the wax. This is why I wondered if mixing the wax with the white spirit (turps), as I'd seen in another thread on here, would keep the wax liquid so it could be used for the burnishing process - without damaging the leather.

Hi Fred. I followed your advice re:: the beeswax & burnishing w/ a piece of cloth, etc; was preeeeetty damn happy w/ the results. Only thing was, it's not easy to keep heat applied to the leather/beeswax to keep it liquid whist trying to burnish at the same time! I came across a post on here that said you could mix the beeswax w/ turpentine/white spirit to keep the beeswax mixture from hardening whilst you burnish. Is this true, d'you know...?

Heh heh. Sadly, being in the UK, ain't gonna seeing much sun at this time of year...! I got a hold of some NFO recently, so will give tanning it in the sun a try when it gets warm again in the new year. ... But i don't suppose leaving the leather in front of a fireplace (a good distance away, of course!) after coating it with NFO would do any good...?

Hiya. I'd say it was more light discolouration, as the leather's been in my garage for about 4 months with the tape around it. There doesn't appear to be any tape residue around the mark. And as you can see, there's also natural discolouration to the left of the tape mark, hence why I'm keen to know how discolouration in general is usually dealt with.

Hi. Have some veg tan that I want to make a piece from. Been in a loose roll in my garage for a couple of months and I put some Gorilla tape on it to keep it together (probably daft, but didn't have any string handy). Is there any recommended way of blending it in? If not, would some kind of repeated dyeing procedure hide it? TIA.

Wow Fred. Many thanks for your reply. This is the kind of stuff I'm after knowing...! ... Learned more from what you said than I have browsing the web, reading various articles/posts, AND from studying a leatherworking book I bought...(!) So the pieces whose hair/top-grain side I've sanded I'll keep for experimentation/my own use, rather than giving them away, as I'd originally intended to do. Will give the beeswax approach to smoothing the sanded hair sides a try. (Btw, it's incredibly useful to know that NFO isn't good to include in a hair-side smoothing compound, which I'd not realised.) I've made a burnisher following directions from the handbook I have (the burnishing edge is now smoother than anything I think I've ever sanded before...). ... But is it better to use a piece of denim/linen - as you suggest - instead of a burnisher with the beeswax to burnish/bring a shine the hair side...? i.

Thanks for the reply fredk. Given what you've said about taking greater care, since leather errors can't be rectified in the same way as with wood (which observation has also shown me), I will certainly take FAR greater care - and also make far more use of scrap pieces to experiment on...!! But I have 3 workpieces with the hair side experimentally dyed/sanded that I don't want to waste, hence my original post about how best to proceed. It's not a problem for me if the smoothness of the hair side is broken through on the above pieces, as I'd sand the entire surface anyway, so it'd all look the same, meaing (in theory, anyway!) the whole surface should be equally reactive (or not!) to whatever finishing method I use. They are not display pieces and will be subject to much wear & tear, so optimal standards of presentation are less important than being able to personalise them. So given the above, what would be the best way of treating/sealing sanded hair side leather with these pieces and if I ever have to do so in future? Can I assume it would be like dealing with suede or nubuck? NB: what does OOAK mean?

Hi. I'm new to leatherworking, coming from the direction of woodworking. I use a laser-engraver with wood, and am now doing the same with leather. (I know it's usual to emboss leather, but I've no embossing equipment and couldn't make my custom designs with it anyway.) Thing is, it's often the case that the laser-engraved work needs redoing for various reasons. With wood, this just means sanding or putting through a thickness planer. No problems. With leather however, this means sanding the smooth/NON-flesh side. Problems. Have found posts regarding smoothing the flesh side, but not about re-smoothing the *outer/non-flesh* side to correct mistakes, hence why I'm posting this. I can't believe people make a mistake on the outer/non-flesh side and simply discard the leather altogether! Have made up some of Dwight's beeswax & neatsfoot oil compound which he says he uses to smooth the flesh side, but I don't know if this will seal the leather and prevent dyeing if I use it on the outer/non-flesh side. (Also not sure how many layers of the compound to use and how long to wait between applying layers.) Any suggestions/help/advice would be very, very welcome...(!)