Reins and a latigo bosal

[Romey]

mmmm Looks like you been busy Pard

[KAW]

Deadringer,

I make a thick mud out of fresh coffee grounds then put my string in the mud and leave it for a couple of hours to over night depending on the thickness of the string and how dark I want it to be then let it dry. I try to dye enough for the project I'm workin on so I have a consistant color.

[deadringer]

Thanks KAW

Will have to start saving my coffee grounds.

Do you have any trouble with the rawhide taking to much moisture and swelling when it is cut in strings and dyed .

I mainly use rawhide roo and the strings are really fine so may have to adjust the time that they stay in the paste.

Thanks very much for the reply. Once again nice work mate never get tired of looking at fine work.

Cheers

Chris

[KAW]

Deadringer,

I usally dye my strings in a wider string, let them dry, then rewet them and cut my final strings along with my natural ones that way I eliminate that problem, another way I've done it is to dye the whole hide, I get the most consistant color that way. Most of my button string I make out of calf hides and I use a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 a can fresh coffee and the rest warm water and leave it till I get the shade of Brown I want then strech it and let it dry and work it when I need it, It should work about the same with roo rawhide.

Do you make you own roo rawhide?

I have never tried it on boughten hide only ones I made.

Hope it works for you

Willey

[deadringer]

G'day Willey

Thanks for the info will give it a try shortly let you know the results

I do some of my own rawhide roo not so much now because they are not as plentiful as where I was 12 months ago .Best results I had was dehairing them with hot water .They came out almost transparent. Have used some bought hides lately from Packer leather..

You can't beat rawhide roo for fine work ,you don't really want to work with it over 3mm because it so thin. I have used leather dye to dye my hides before but only when they are still wet straight from dehairing. Will have to try some test strips with the bought stuff and see if it works.

I found that it always darkened considerable after it had dried when using the water based Dye.

Thanks for the tips

Cheers Mate

Chris

[unicornwoman]

What finish are you using to set the color and prevent bleed?

[KAW]

Unicornwoman, sorry it took me so long but I haven't been on the computer much, you can use vinegar to set it, but I use alot of calf hides for button strings and try to dye as much with natural dyes over ritz and other dyes and don't have much of a bleeding problem and most of the time I will try to dye the whole hide when green so I get as deep of penatration as I can from the start and get a consistant color and if I do it that way it is alot easier to keep all my strings for a certin project consistant, I try to stay away from dying my rawhide if I can but some people just have to have the color, personally I like rawhide natural, but there are alot of people that like the colors.

[ArtS]

Wow, those are really nice! Someday I hope I can afford a pair like that. I'll be too old to ride by the time I could learn to make a pair.

ArtS