pictures of my workspace

[Art]

Heat it to just warm not hot. The darkness will be about the same. You really have to try these things as it is different for everyone.

Art

Would I also get darker coloring if I heat the conditioner and use it without any dye?

Ed

[abn]

Now I want to try the Lexol to see if there is a difference. I'm beginning to see that maybe Pete's idea of mixing in the British tan is brilliant and will try it soon.

Ed, I'm very interested in the results of your testing, so please continue to share your observations. Thanks for starting this topic.

-Alex

[esantoro]

Early results.

I've tried a bit of dye with Fiebings 4way and a bit of die with NF pure. The dye mixes completely with the 4way. Not so with the pure NF.

Conclusion: 4way over pure NF.

Next round: I'll try the Lexol if Ferdco ever sends it to me. But I have a feeling that I will be going with Pete's nod to the Bick 4. It just may be quite different from the other conditioners. But who knows. Maybe it's the dye. All I had on hand was Tandy dark brown all-in-one dye. I'll be ordering the feibings British tan from Siegels soon.

Ed

I just got some Bick 4 today and did a little emperiment.

I did one application of Bick 4 , one of Fiebings 4 Way, and one of Fiebings' neatsfoot oil.

The neatsfoot darkened the leather the most. The Bick 4 darkened ( a very light shade) a tad bit more than the 4 Way did, even though the Bick 4 bottle reads that it will not darken leather.

I have uploaded an annoted jpeg to illustrate. For those of you not familiar with Bick 4, it's much thicker and creamier than either the 4Way or Lexol.

Ed

[esantoro]

Some day soon, I will have to upload pictures of my workspace. I'm quite proud of doing so much with so little space.

The drawback, however, is that I don't quite have the storage space for quantities of sides which I have to buy when prices are too low to pass up (Siegel's last ridiculously awesome sale, for example).

My problem is that some of the leather is being darkened unevenly by indoor lighting and sometimes I have to use leather from a different side for the flap on my briefcases. Either way, I need to be able to even out the natural coloring of the veg tanned leather. So far, I've been oiling the lighter areas more heavily. Today as I was casing a handle, I got the idea of rubbing the entire flap down with warm water to even out and darken the color. Do any of you have other suggestions for evening out the color. I'd like to stay away from dyes.

Thanks,

Ed

Here's a picture of the bag I'm working on that has presented this darkening issue.

Ed

[whinewine]

Ed: part of the problem is that all veg-tan WILL darken in light- that's just the way it goes. Other than keeping your leather in a light- tight area (like a darkroom), there is not much you can do about it unless you dye very, very dark. This is something you need to explain to your customers- that veg-tan WILL darken over time, and stress the 'CHARACTER' of this 'MELLOWING' of 'FINE LEATHERS', much like the aging of 'A FINE WINE'... The client needs to understand that this will occur over time & there is nothing that will stop it entirely. You don't want the client coming back a year from now & complaining that you sold him a defective case ...'cause the leather darkened all by itself'...

Here is a suggestion: brace the flap open & expose the part underneath to sufficiently strong light (like sunlight) to darken it to the extent the flap itself is dark. The straps, which appear lighter, can be LIGHTLY masked with painters tape, so they stay lighter in contrast. I have done this on occasion, but only where the contrast was so severe that it was necessary.

[$$hobby]

if you can, try convering the hides and or place them hair side down.