Natural and DIY leather dyes and stains

[crazytailorlady]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to make some leather stuff soon and the material I'll be using is un-dyed vegtan leather. Since supply is tricky for me and since I have to be very careful about dye safety as I make horse equipment and it is in contact with skin, I thought to ask this community for any recipes and methods for making natural dyes or stains for leather. Does not matter if they are super strong like commercial ones are, I just want something that can give leather a different color (even if it only darkens it) and something that I can make with relatively accessible materials. Any suggestions welcome, I am very new to the chemical department

[fredk]

Make some Walnut ink, add some rusty nails and some lamp black as you make it. Make a lot, thin with water and add a little NFO. Apply to leather. Coat with beeswax well rubbed in and buffed up

[battlemunky]

Set it in the sun.

[Ed in Tx]

Vinegaroon will dye the veg-tan leather black. There are links here on the forums for the specific recipe. Basically it is a vinegar base and you put metal such as scouring pads in it. They dissolve over time. It does a great job of darkening the leather.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Ed in Tx

[dikman]

There have been a few posts about making dyes, I have made walnut dye from walnut husks, but it's a long process. As Ed said, vinegaroon is a great one for dying things black, although it's more of a dark-grey/black, looks really nice. If you have sunny days battlemunky's idea works well, the UV darkens it slightly to a rich golden brown.

[TonyV]

I have used very strong espresso coffee to die holsters various shades of brown.  I also use vinegaroon for a flat black.  fresh vinegaroon works best, but even  my 2-year old batch of it works well.

I got a yellowish brown on veg tan using green tea, just slightly different than the natural color.

I have read of, but never tried, using ammonia to bleach leather.

YMMV

[crazytailorlady]

Thanks a lot! I love the idea of vinegaroon, can't believe I haven't heard of it before. And I have a forest of walnuts in my yard so I will definitely be trying that out too. A question about setting in the sun, am I supposed to coat it with something first? Kinda scared it may dry out.

[battlemunky]

10 hours ago, crazytailorlady said:

Thanks a lot! I love the idea of vinegaroon, can't believe I haven't heard of it before. And I have a forest of walnuts in my yard so I will definitely be trying that out too. A question about setting in the sun, am I supposed to coat it with something first? Kinda scared it may dry out.

With the walnut dye, you need to get them while they are green and then boil them into oblivion. You know how handling the walnut husks will turn stain your hands for a few days, basically, any nut husk will work as dye that way. I have a few gallon bags in my freezer waiting until I can get to them. Use trash pots though, it'll stain even stainless steel. 

As far as setting it out into the sun goes, just leaving it out for several hours will begin to darken it but if you wet it first or oil it first will yield different results. Try experimenting a bit. I think it matters how it was tanned. Some recipes are different than others and will work differently depending on the tannery's recipe and how the hide accepted the tanning. Then just use it and treat it like you usually would. Sun tanning is the chemical free and least effort way to darken it, you just have to have a bit of patience.

[dikman]

I made a notebook cover for a graduating police office and everything about it was pretty much left up to me. I had used a small laser thingy to burn the official police logo into it and felt that most dyes were likely to be too dark against the black etching, but I didn't like the "natural" colour (too light), so I gave it a coat of neatsfoot oil and left it in the sun for a couple of days (in Summer). It came out with a beautiful rich lightish brown colour. The girl I was making it for was stoked!

[crazytailorlady]

3 hours ago, dikman said:

I made a notebook cover for a graduating police office and everything about it was pretty much left up to me. I had used a small laser thingy to burn the official police logo into it and felt that most dyes were likely to be too dark against the black etching, but I didn't like the "natural" colour (too light), so I gave it a coat of neatsfoot oil and left it in the sun for a couple of days (in Summer). It came out with a beautiful rich lightish brown colour. The girl I was making it for was stoked!

I'm very interested in that method. Do you by any chance have photos of your project?

[dikman]

I have a couple but they were taken before I gave it the sun treatment. You can see a slight "colour" variation in the leather, this disappeared after being left in the sun. I didn't think to take a photo afterwards. It's nothing special, as such, about 4"x6" and is designed for their pocket size notebooks. It will be handled a lot so should age very quickly.

 

[crazytailorlady]

On 7/24/2022 at 12:21 AM, dikman said:

I have a couple but they were taken before I gave it the sun treatment. You can see a slight "colour" variation in the leather, this disappeared after being left in the sun. I didn't think to take a photo afterwards. It's nothing special, as such, about 4"x6" and is designed for their pocket size notebooks. It will be handled a lot so should age very quickly.

 

Thanks for the photo! Definitely worth noting this method. Beautiful piece of work too.