Still Buffing

[TomE]

This video has some tips that were new to me for even dye coverage and eliminating rub off, particularly near the end of the video.  Best of all, he says there are no firm rules and many ways to get a good result.

 

[Dwight]

7 hours ago, DwightT said:

Why the 50/50 dilution for the dye?  Not looking to start an argument, but I've seen others mention that and I can't remember seeing the reasoning behind it.  I typically use it straight from the bottle, but I'm using an artist's brush to apply it to a small area.  Is the 50/50 limitation only applicable when you are dying the entire piece?

And why the dilution for the Resolene?  Since that is a sealant, wouldn't you want it full strength for the best effect?

    /dwight

Some 25 years ago when I started in this "hobby" . . .  I was given the advice to dilute both 50/50 . . . by men who have by now been in this for well over 50 years . . . or retired.

I tried both full strength . . . did not like the results with either.

Having said that . . . I dip dye gun holsters . .  .belts . . . cell phone cases . . . knife sheaths . . . rifle slings . . . rifle scabbards . . . and everything else I do.  Nothing is "brush" dyed . . . 

Everything will have at least one square foot or more of leather . . . and needs to be finished in an even looking manner.  

Having said that . . . I also add a coat of neatsfoot oil 24 hours before dying . . . and my dye jobs come out even from one end of a 3 inch wide . . . double layer . . . 56 inch western gun belt . . . all the way to the other end.  That cannot be done with a brush . . . piece of wool . . . dauber . . . or any other way . . . other than an air spray gun . . . which lays a couple thousandths of an inch of dye on the surface that is scratched thru the first time the item gets any hard use.

So in effect . . . I'm talking from hard won experience.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Gosut]

15 hours ago, fredk said:

Same reason for resolene. My resolene is thick. Straight from the bottle it doesn't soak into the leather. It just coats the top surface.  Diluted it soaks into the leather better and gets down deeper into the leather sealing the dye that has gone deeper

My single experience with Resolene (tm ) used a 50/50 mixture. The leather readily absorbed the 1st coat. 24 hours later, it absorbed the 2nd coat. Another 24 hours later, the 3rd coat didn't soak in as well. Took that as meaning the first two coats were doing their job. But yes, I was amazed at how well the finish went into the leather.

[DwightT]

Ok, getting better penetration with diluted dye makes sense.  As I mentioned I've done very few projects where I had to dye the whole thing.  Usually I'm just doing small areas like backgrounds or other individual tooled elements.  When I do those my brush will go from the bottle to a scrap piece of leather first for the initial discharge, then to the project.  I do that to control the bleed-over into the surrounding areas, so I was probably leaving the "hot-spot" that was mentioned on the scrap piece.  Diluting the dye won't mean that I won't have to do that intermediate step.  If anything I would expect that I could have more problems with bleed-over, but I still think diluting it would be good for the general better penetration.

As for Resolene, I haven't really used it much until just recently.  Up until now I've either being using the spray-on SaddleLac, or my old NeatLac.  Since I finally used up my NeatLac and everbody has been talking about Resolene, I thought I would give it a try.  The instructions on the bottle didn't really say anything directly about diluting, but it does say to apply with a damp sponge.  Regardless I'll start directly diluting it also.

A question with diluting the dye: if you are mixing two or more dyes, are you diluting the individual colors first and then mixing or do you mix first and then dilute the results?  Does it even matter?

    /dwight

[fredk]

21 minutes ago, DwightT said:

. . .

A question with diluting the dye: if you are mixing two or more dyes, are you diluting the individual colors first and then mixing or do you mix first and then dilute the results?  Does it even matter?

I don't think it really matters. But I think you have more control on the mixed colour if both dyes are thinned the same amount before mixing. I recently mixed some thinned red with thinned blue to get a cetain shade of reddish-purple. I think, had the dyes been unthinned I would have had a problem getting the shade I wanted