Prepping Tandy vegitan for Fiebings pro dye

[hylander]

Tandy vegitan seems to have some kind of finish on it. Is there a way to remove that, should I remove that, before using Fiebings Pro Dye?

[TomE]

If it takes up water normally then it's probably fine.  Can dye a test piece to be sure.  A safe bet is to clean the surface with Fiebings Deglazer.  I have used Deglazer to prep bridle leather that I dyed with Fiebings Pro black dye.  It removed the waxy surface and a bit of brown dye from the bridle leather. The black dyed piece looks and wears like black bridle leather from the tannery.

[hylander]

Thank you Tom!

[Dwight]

Tandy leather does not have a finish of any kind on their veg tanned leather.  You are only looking at the leather itself.

Don't waste good money on deglazer . . . 

First thing you do with veg tanned leather . . . especially if it is going to be a tan, light brown, or other lighter color . . . 

Give it a light coat of neatsfoot oil the day before.  LIGHT is the appropriate word . . . on the hair side only . . . just enough to be sure you got the whole surface covered.

Do not use that junk neatsfoot oil compound . . . use the real stuff.

Let it dry for 24 hours . . . it actually does not "dry" it just saturates evenly throughout the project.

Next day . . . dye it . . . if you are cheap and don't care about your customers . . . use an air spray gun . . . it will put a coat of dye very evenly on it if you are good . . . it will be very thin . . . and if the project gets a good scratch . . . it will scratch off the dye . . . revealing bare leather.

I prefer dip dyeing . . . and it comes out more uniform than any other process I've ever tried . . . as you can only dip dye something by dipping it.

Thin down the dye using a 1 to 1 ratio with Feibings dye reducer.  Again . . . playing with the ratio will get weird colors . . . and going very light . . . will allow the sun to bleach the dye color out of the project.

I prefer to lay my project down on the side not seen . . . or seen less.  Do not hang belts up to dry . . . the dye will drift to the bottom . . . making it dark on the bottom end . . . lighter on the to end.

Let it dry for 24 hours.

Finish to suit yourself.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Sheilajeanne]

I found that wetting the leather before dyeing would help in getting a more even coat. Before I found that out, here's what the FIRST coat looked like!

The finished product looked a LOT better...

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Sheilajeanne