Has anyone tattooed leather

[silverback]

Can tattoo ink be used to colour leather or is it a different composition.i know nothing of tattooing and wondered if the inks were different ie;water based,alcohol or whatever

Edited October 23, 2012 by silverback

[Beaverslayer]

Can tattoo ink be used to colour leather or is it a different composition.i know nothing of tattooing and wondered if the inks were different ie;water based,alcohol or whatever

silverback,

Tattoo "ink" is more a "pigment" than paint, dye or "ink". It does dry out, if left out in the open like paints and dyes.

I was up till 4:30 this morning surfing the web, trying to find as much information on this prior to testing at the tattoo shop. I found a very interesting site regarding a French artist, who covered a Ferrari with leather, then tattooed the leather. It hangs on a wall in his gallery....must be nice to have that kind of money.

I've e-mailed him asking if he could share some knowledge on how he tattooed the leather and what kind of leather it is. My thoughts were, that him not using the process as an income source like the others I found on the net, is that he may be willing to move me in the right direction.

The Ferrari looks like it is covered in some sort of soft leather, as it actually looks like it came out of the factory that way, so my thoughts are it's not a veg tan. I did find one person who tattooed veg tan quite successfully. What he did, was spray the leather with a shellac type product...he did not mention what type or brand...then he totally soaked the leather in warm water and tattooed it just like a human. It looked okay, but he wasn't a tattoo artist by any stretch of the imagination.

There is a company called "Electric Solo" who does solo bike seats and tattoos them. He professes that he spent five years perfecting the process, and will not reveal any secrets. Quite a few of the seats he has done, are on "White" leather, so again this leads me to believe that it's not veg tan, as we all know just how hard it is to dye veg tan white.

I also found another place that tattoos leather furniture, again white leather, and a leather that looks exactly like what is on the Ferrari. And I don't think furniture would be very comfy if it was made from veg tan.

So, back to researching, and tomorrow we'll be at the tattoo shop and try a few things out....wish me luck....

[Beaverslayer]

here is some pictures of the Ferrari. The French artist name is Phillipe Pasqua.

[silverback]

That is art.Good luck with the quest.i was wondering about the tatt inks because a local craft/office supplies store has some tatt inks from China pretty cheap and i wanted to know if they worked as a normal dye on leather as in belts etc.the owner could not tell me but i suppose i should just buy some and try it on some scrap.I was more worried about longevity and fading over time,the colour choice is quite extensive so it could pay to experiment.Being on the west coast of Australia makes it expensive to obtain items so when opportunity knocks you have to grab it.

[Beaverslayer]

silverback,

I'm not sure about using tattoo ink as a dye on leather, and I know for sure I wouldn't let anyone sink Chinese ink into my skin...Tattoo ink tends to be a bit thicker than most dyes, more like a hobby paint, it's longevity would depend on how it was sealed over afterwards.

[Beaverslayer]

Well, regarding tattooing leather, we seem to have figured it out quite quickly.

We tried pigskin....didn't work.

We tried Chrome Tan Calfskin...didn't work

We tried Garment Lambskin...didn't work

So, we tried cased Veg Tanned...work, but the Vaseline kind of screwed it up.

So, what I did was to take a piece of 2/3 oz Veg Tan, put 3 coats of Super Sheen on it.

Once the Super Sheen had dried, I soaked the leather in hot water, until it worked its way all the way through. Had to do this by running hot water over the backside of the leather, as the water would not penetrate the Super Sheen.

We let it sit for about 30 minutes, the proceeded to tattoo just like you would a human. The only step we didn't do, was to use Vaseline. After spending a bit of time adjusting the needle depth and power supply voltage, it worked quite well. The needle on the gun is adjusted for a very short stroke, but the power is cranked up to give a very "Heavy" hit.

The needle we used was a single needle liner and regular tattoo ink. Depending on how good you are with a vibrating tattoo gun in your hand, and making it stop and start with a foot pedal, your results will most likely vary quite a bit. Myself, I don't like the vibrating gun in my hand, it tends to put my fingers asleep because of nerve damage in my arms and hands.

I'm going to invest in a nice rotary tattoo gun, as these do not vibrate like a standard coiled gun does.

Next I want to try tooling something, then tattooing it so it has finer highlights and faded coloring. This could open up a whole lot more options to our wonderful world of leather.

Well below is a picture of what I tattooed, please remember I'm not a tattoo artist so it's not real fancy, but you get the general idea.

[silverback]

Good on you mate,starting to get there!I love it when a plan comes together.

[cem]

Thank you Beaverslayer for the info, I'm still not sure if I'll ever get the time to have a go at it but at least I know how it looks to be done now.

Cheers,

Clair

[Beaverslayer]

cem,

This is only the beginning. Ever since I posted the picture, it's been a constant brain drain about tattooing leather. The Ferrari has me just stumped.

There is no way the artist sealed that entire car, then cased all that leather. Also, the leather on that Ferrari does not look like veg tan.

My son and I (the tattooing son) were at Marks Work Warehouse this evening, and he had picked up a work boot that had the nicest suede type leather on it. He found me and asked my what kind of leather it was, so I told him I thought it was cowhide suede of a very good quality. He then asked me how would we tattoo this leather, because if we put that sealing stuff on it would wreck the leather.

Well, this again started the old brain draining. So, its off to the leather supply store tomorrow to see if we can't find a bunch of scraps of a whole bunch of different kinds of leather, then back to the tattoo shop. I'm going to figure this out, one way or another....

[cem]

Cool, the Ferrari has me stumped as well as it's the best example out there. There was another thread here that I posted on with a lot of links showing examples but as it was fairly old I checked them just now and most have gone and some of these were done by established tattoo artists used to the vibration of a tattoo machine and the Ferrari is still the best.

The Ferrari guy has some brilliant artwork but there are no other examples of tattooed work that I saw, either on leather or people and he doesn't seem have any tattoos himself so I'm just not sure about it without seeing the car in person or at least some better close up photos.

I've seen some other examples of artwork on leather that's being called tattooed just because it's in that style not because it's actually been tattooed by a tattoo machine not saying it is definitely the case here but it could be a possibility. I'd be surprised if any info ever came out on it as fine artists can be even worse that tattoo artists when it comes to trade secrets.

Hope you can find a way to do it, I know once I latch on to something I'm going to get it too work and bug the hell out of everyone until I do family members usually try to make themselves scarce when this happens ha ha ha.