Strange grey spots on new veg tan?

[Yukonrookie]

So I just got a piece of 9/10oz double butt veg tan leather and after casing the leather and starting stamping a practice piece I end up seeing these strange grey-ish spots. Anyone know what they are? I didn’t see them before casing but as I’m adding water and keep stamping they show more and more. I attached a picture of my partially stamped practice piece (I’m still practicing and getting a hang on things so it don’t look like much) . You’ll be able to see those spots on there. I also attached a pic of a half piece. You can’t see anything on it, until you put water on it.

 

This leather is kinda strange anyway. It feels “sticky” when cutting with my swivel, like there is a lot of drag and some of the cuts look gray too. It’s dries out super fast and needs water more often than any other leather I worked with before. It even has a funny chemically smell to it. The supplier claims it’s all natural Italian Veg tan. No bleaching or such. Although it does looks pretty light, it doesn’t look as white to me as some of the bleached stuff. For what it’s worth, the flesh side LOOKS super clean.
 

Unfortunately I’m not yet experienced enough to “read” leather so I’m hoping someone here might have an idea on what I’m dealing with here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks kindly folks. 

[Mulesaw]

hmm, that looks strange. Does the spots disappear when the leather dries?

Btw. I think you stamping looks good so far!

[Yukonrookie]

2 minutes ago, Mulesaw said:

hmm, that looks strange. Does the spots disappear when the leather dries?

Btw. I think you stamping looks good so far!

Well, thank you kindly sir. Still heck of a lot of practice needed though.

The spots disappear a little when dry but not fully. The only times they’re not there is before I start casing for the first time. Now, this is only my second practice piece and the first one was even smaller so I’m not sure if all of it will have those spots but it sure is a disappointment. It’s not the leather from laederiet btw. That stuff looks great and is a joy to carve and stamp too. So thank you for the recommendation!

[Mulesaw]

Just now, Yukonrookie said:

Well, thank you kindly sir. Still heck of a lot of practice needed though.

The spots disappear a little when dry but not fully. The only times they’re not there is before I start casing for the first time. Now, this is only my second practice piece and the first one was even smaller so I’m not sure if all of it will have those spots but it sure is a disappointment. It’s not the leather from laederiet btw. That stuff looks great and is a joy to carve and stamp too. So thank you for the recommendation!

I am glad that it isn't the stuff from Laederiet, but it is still strange with the spots. Have you tried to see if it is the same on both sides of the piece? Perhaps the side that is closest to the belly of the cow is different compared to the stuff that is farthest away from the belly? Not that any of it should have spots, but it could be that some part of it is easier to carve. 

Brgds Jonas

[Yukonrookie]

@Mulesaw I will give that a try. It almost looks like some sort of oxidation but not sure how that’s possible though. This leather sure dries out super fast too. I’ll give a back piece a try. Thanks again

[DieselTech]

@Yukonrookie dye a test piece with the spots on it to see if it aggrevates the spots/makes them stand out. 

[Yukonrookie]

16 minutes ago, DieselTech said:

@Yukonrookie dye a test piece with the spots on it to see if it aggrevates the spots/makes them stand out. 

Thanks. I’ll try that out.

[chuck123wapati]

Iron filings will cause that problem did you sand or sharpen anything near it?

[Yukonrookie]

40 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

Iron filings will cause that problem did you sand or sharpen anything near it?

Thanks for the reply.
Hmm, no I keep my leather area free from any iron/metal work. I also just got the leather that same day and got to work on a test piece right away. What you say sounds plausible though. Do you think there’s any way it got contaminated during or after the tanning process? There’s a very strange smell to it as well. Not sure if this warrants me contacting the supplier and ask some questions? The last thing I want to do is complain about something that’s my own fault, but I just can’t see what I did wrong. As I had mentioned before this leather is different in other ways as well. Would sure love to get to the bottom of this. Even if just so I understand. 

[chuck123wapati]

Could have, check the unused part closely for contamination of any particles that may be causing the problem. iron reacts to the tannins in the leather when wet and causes staining.

[TonyV]

If any of those spots grow or change shapes it could be mold/mildew.

[AlZilla]

5 hours ago, Yukonrookie said:

The last thing I want to do is complain about something that’s my own fault, but I just can’t see what I did wrong.

Contact them, explain it just as you have here and ask if they have any ideas. They might be aware of an issue.

Maybe you'll come back and report on a company that took great care of you.

[Northmount]

6 hours ago, Yukonrookie said:

Thanks for the reply.
Hmm, no I keep my leather area free from any iron/metal work. I also just got the leather that same day and got to work on a test piece right away. What you say sounds plausible though. Do you think there’s any way it got contaminated during or after the tanning process? There’s a very strange smell to it as well. Not sure if this warrants me contacting the supplier and ask some questions? The last thing I want to do is complain about something that’s my own fault, but I just can’t see what I did wrong. As I had mentioned before this leather is different in other ways as well. Would sure love to get to the bottom of this. Even if just so I understand. 

Chuck has it right!  Spots that vary from light blue gray all the way to black are a result of a reaction between the tannins in the leather and iron contamination.  It could have happened anywhere after tanning until it arrived on your bench. 

A year or so ago, I had a nice piece of leather that was going to be part of clutch purse with horses figure carved on both sides of the purse.  I cased and transferred my pattern onto the leather bagged it over night.  In the morning, I came back to it and there was this blue spot outside of what would be the carved area, so couldn't be hidden with tooling or dye.  There was a tiny piece of metal embedded in the leather just below the surface.  So it had got there during the tanning or finishing process.

Like Chuck says, keep all iron filings and fleeings (fine particles of metal dust in the atmosphere) away from your leather and off your bench.  Even turning on a fan could be enough to blow iron dust laying on any surfaces around your work space.

As a matter of interest, you can look up vinegaroon, used to 'dye' leather blue/black.  It's really not dye, but a chemical reaction.

[Yukonrookie]

@chuck123wapati @TonyV @AlZilla @Northmount 

Thanks for all the replies, guys. This means a lot! Yeah, those spots are all over the whole piece of double butts. They seem to be imbedded right into it. I’ll give the supplier a call in the morning. Let’s see what they gotta say. As it is I can’t use it. If it was the odd spot here and there, I wouldn’t mind much, but all over the place isn’t a good look. Not even for hobby work, imo. 
 

@DieselTech I dyed a little piece with pro dye saddle tan and once it dried those spots were still visible some.  Was worth a try though. Thank you. Btw was there any particular reason you asked to try dyeing it? Just curious.

Anyway, thanks again everyone. Greatly appreciated. 

[Northmount]

3 minutes ago, Yukonrookie said:

I dyed a little piece with pro dye saddle tan and once it dried those spots were still visible some.  Was worth a try though.

Dye will only hide it if it is the same colour and density or darker. 

[DieselTech]

55 minutes ago, Yukonrookie said:

@chuck123wapati @TonyV @AlZilla @Northmount 

Thanks for all the replies, guys. This means a lot! Yeah, those spots are all over the whole piece of double butts. They seem to be imbedded right into it. I’ll give the supplier a call in the morning. Let’s see what they gotta say. As it is I can’t use it. If it was the odd spot here and there, I wouldn’t mind much, but all over the place isn’t a good look. Not even for hobby work, imo. 
 

@DieselTech I dyed a little piece with pro dye saddle tan and once it dried those spots were still visible some.  Was worth a try though. Thank you. Btw was there any particular reason you asked to try dyeing it? Just curious.

Anyway, thanks again everyone. Greatly appreciated. 

The reason I had you try a piece to see if the spots would disappear from the dye job. 

& if the spots did not disappear after the dye job, I was going to say as others have mentioned. Iron contamination within the leather. 

[Yukonrookie]

22 hours ago, AlZilla said:

Contact them, explain it just as you have here and ask if they have any ideas. They might be aware of an issue.

Maybe you'll come back and report on a company that took great care of you.

I heard back from the supplier and they said they’d send me a new piece. So it seems that, I’ll be able to report back on a company that takes care of their customers and I will very happily do so. Thanks for your reply.

[greygeist3191]

Maybe High iron in your water? 

[AlZilla]

5 hours ago, Yukonrookie said:

I heard back from the supplier and they said they’d send me a new piece. So it seems that, I’ll be able to report back on a company that takes care of their customers and I will very happily do so. Thanks for your reply.

Hey, congrats on a quick resolution. Way too often people go straight to Defcon 1 instead of just calmly explaining their concern and letting the vendor respond.

Edited November 5 by AlZilla

[Yukonrookie]

On 11/5/2024 at 1:10 AM, AlZilla said:

Hey, congrats on a quick resolution. Way too often people go straight to Defcon 1 instead of just calmly explaining their concern and letting the vendor respond.

Yup, for sure. I think a good company is willing to make things right if they know about it. These days I feel people sometimes give a bad review without giving the business a chance to make things right. Mistakes or accidents happen and to me a good business is the one that is willing to fix it. All that within reason, of course. Also, not always a bad review is warranted. I remember reading a bad review where the fault lies with the customer not using the product correctly, for example. Obviously oftentimes a bad review was definitely the way to go, in order to warn other potential customers.
Anyway, thanks for your replies. I will follow up with how this turned out with the supplier.

On 11/5/2024 at 1:09 AM, greygeist3191 said:

Maybe High iron in your water? 

I was able to rule that out. After I used tap water I the then ended up using distilled water.  

[Northmount]

On 11/4/2024 at 5:09 PM, greygeist3191 said:

Maybe High iron in your water? 

I've seen this comment before, but after thinking about it a little that doesn't make sense.  If so the whole piece should turn blue/black as the iron would be equally dissolved through out the water, not in little globs (unless old pipes with rusty scale flaking off).

[Yukonrookie]

5 hours ago, Northmount said:

I've seen this comment before, but after thinking about it a little that doesn't make sense.  If so the whole piece should turn blue/black as the iron would be equally dissolved through out the water, not in little globs (unless old pipes with rusty scale flaking off).

Yup, sounds logical. These spots look “embedded” into the leather. The supplier, who is also the tannery, are actually going to do some tests at the warehouse. Spot testing this whole batch that my double butts came from. At least thats how I understood them. All this makes me feel pretty good about them. It sounds like they’re doing due diligence and don’t want to replace my leather with still contaminated stuff. Or send it to anyone else. I will reveal their name after they finished things on their end. This is my first time ordering from them and I don’t want to give them a bad rep. Especially not until they did their thing with this. Also they claim this has never happened to them before and I believe them, as I don’t know of anything to think otherwise. 
 

My first complaint with this leather, before I noticed the first spots, was how dry it was and how difficult it carved. It felt almost like my swivel knife was going through tough rubber. And yeah, it was super dry. Needed more water than anything I had used before. Which, to be fair, isn’t a lot. But I have tried stuff from Tandy stuff through a few Italian tanneries to Hermann oak and nothing carved or stamped even nearly this bad. Plus it deforms horribly. A couple layers of blue masking tape and a layer of good packing tape and it still deformed quite a bit. This is 9/10oz mins you

 

[leatherman64]

As an FYI normally if you use Bee Natural Pro Carve in your water you case with, it will eliminate that reaction before it happens.  It will not remove it once there, but if you are keeping that hide then its worth a try to salvage the leather.  

[bladegrinder]

So, what company was it?