making your own dye

[JohnBarton]

Hi,

Where I am it hard to get dyes. But where I am there is plenty of art supplies. So my question is how hard is it to make dyes for leather? Does anyone know how to do it from commonly available paints/pigments???

I found a few resources online for making dye in general but I don't know what kind of formula I should be looking at specifically for leather.

We also have plenty of plants, flowers, and herbs available. :-) Especially tea which was mentioned as a good way to get brown.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[Pip]

Walnut husk (dried and crushed) in alcohol with wire wool should give you black without gives you brown, but will need straining and watch when you cut the husk it dyes everything including metal!!!

Gorse flowers give a nice light yellowy green.

according to my naturalist books Alder bark is supposed to give orange but all i get is slime (birch bark is better), i must be doing something wrong, beetroot works well but does darken/ lighten over time depending on finish and sunlight It gives a pink that goes browny over time.

Blackberries give a bluey grey, fern fronds, a minty green and elder berries a lovely purple I can't remember which go in alcohol and which are boiled in water i will have to refresh when i find the book. It may take some time.

[ferret]

red wine warmed (not boiled) with wire wool, left for a week then strained gives a nice grey which can go black with subsequent applications.

[JohnBarton]

Thank you. The more I think about it the more excited I am to at least try to come up with some natural dyes that we make.

This is a website that appears to have some really good color information:

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html

and here is a supplier I found

http://www.aurorasilk.com/natural_dyes/dyes/index.html

again, I don't know any formulas yet as to what works and what doesn't but I guess that's part of the process to work it out.

Edit: here is one with some recipes

http://www.essortment.com/naturaldyeplan_rxll.htm

I also want to ask if there is anything special about "leather" dye that I need to know. I know that we use solvent based and oil based dyes but I don't know why. Honestly, this is the deepest I have ever gone into tooling and dying leather. In my previous life we used 90% finished leather for our cases and the tooled lines we had were outsourced so that I had very little idea of the actual process.

Now, I have to be keenly aware of our stock of colors because when I accept a custom order I need to be able to fill it.

Edited February 23, 2008 by JohnBarton

[barra]

Experiment with bricklayers oxide powders, obtainable from the hardware mixed with alcohol as well as the barks etc.

Barra

[whinewine]

many paint stores stock, or can get for you, aniline dyes, which are mixed with (I believe), wood (methyl) alcohol. The amount = the strength/depth of color.

[Hilly]

Boiled onion skins make a nice brown.

Puree LOTS of grass, place in pantyhose "bag" and simmer for nice grass stain green.

Granny used to have a shagbark hickory tree (I think) in her front yard, which the husks would turn your hands yellow for days.

Try crushed raspberry juice for red, or any other berry that stains. Mulberry makes a beautiful violet blue stain on your fingers - why not try it on leather? Crush and paint on with a brush.

I just don't know how colorfast these are, but I know they all stain pretty bad (good).

Try Googleing "natural dyes", and see what you come up with. My mother used to spin and dye wool, and was always ordering some kind of natural dyes out of catalogs. She could make any color of the rainbow and then some.

I bet you won't have the problems of your dye freezing while being shipped like we do here in the north

Good luck, and keep us posted on what you find, cuz it souds pretty interesting.

[David Genadek]

John,

I have attached a couple pictures done by Bob Brown, these were colored with food dyes.

David Genadek

[Blake]

There is a book "The Complete Handbook Of Leathercrafting" by Jane E. Garnes ISBN 0-89874-899-2 published by Krieger Publishing co. 1981. location Malabar Florida 32950

This book has a lot of information on dyes and raw material along with a lot of misc useful information in general.

I would imagine that it is probably out of print but may find one on Amazon or through a used book dealer.

I picked my copy up at the Pan American Leather Fair in Miami some years back and have found it useful and interesting.

Blake

[fishguy]

vinegar with steel wool or iron filings, let stand 24 hours, makes a nice black. brush on and let dry, then rinse with dilute baking soda solution and then water. This is an old fashioned dye known as "vinegaroon"