Dye Faded After Conditioning?

[NewYorkerInSydney]

Hi everyone. Last night I dyed my first belt. I used Fiebings Oil Dye in Saddle tan on undyed, natural looking Cordovan. It looked great. No streaking. Not a bad job at all. Thats all I did. End of story. That was about 24 hours ago. I just decided to put lexol on it so as to soften the leather because this cordovan is friggin stiff. Anyway, I noticed as I was applying it that the lexol was turning orange because the dye on the leather was coming off. The leather is completely dry now and the color is ruined. It is faded and looks terrible. Does anyone know what I did wrong??? I waited about 24 hours before conditioning and didn't even rub the lexol in hard. I haven't done anything else to it. I would love to hear some feedback. Thanks very much.

Edited March 9, 2010 by NewYorkerInSydney

[abn]

I may be a bit confused by your question. You mention the leather was undyed, but you refer to it as "cordovan" which is a color. Was the leather natural -- very pale and skin-colored -- or was it already medium to dark brown? If the latter was the case, it's possible you attempted to apply dye over a latigo belt blank. Although latigo feels like unfinished leather, it's actually heavily impregnated with dyes and oils. That might be the reason your dye job didn't stick.

Under normal circumstances, using regular veg-tan leather and oil-based dyes, Lexol won't pull the color off.

[NewYorkerInSydney]

I may be a bit confused by your question. You mention the leather was undyed, but you refer to it as "cordovan" which is a color. Was the leather natural -- very pale and skin-colored -- or was it already medium to dark brown? If the latter was the case, it's possible you attempted to apply dye over a latigo belt blank. Although latigo feels like unfinished leather, it's actually heavily impregnated with dyes and oils. That might be the reason your dye job didn't stick.

Under normal circumstances, using regular veg-tan leather and oil-based dyes, Lexol won't pull the color off.

Hello ABN,

Thanks for your reply. The leather is undyed cordovan leather and very pale and natural skin colored, made of horse butt, which to my knowledge is called cordovan leather. So it was undyed. Cordovan is a color as well. This thing wasn't already dyed at all. So I have no idea why this problem.

[vahillbilly]

Did you buff off the excess dye after the dye was dry? If not, that may be why it is "coming off" with the conditioner.

[MADMAX22]

No expert with horse butts lol but I think horse is a tighter grained leather then cowhide and is a little tougher to dye. Basically you wont get the same results you are use to. The dye has a harder time penetrating the leather.

You may try looking around in the holster section as some of those guys use horse hide for holsters and there was a similer thread on dying it.

Also as mentioned before when you dye it after wards you may need to buff it out really well before you condition it. Maybe apply a second coat after you buff the leather really well.

[NewYorkerInSydney]

Hi guys, thank you so much for your replies.

Ok, I guess I should have said, I am new to this. This was the first time I have dyed anything and was so happy with how well the leather dyed because it was even with no streaks. All I did was dye it and that's it. I never buffed it because I did not know that I had to do that. All I did was cut a piece of leather into the shape of a belt. they dyed it. That's it. No other steps. Yikes. Do I finish the leather AFTER I condition it? or before I condition it? This horse butt leather is really really stiff, sheesh. Im really sorry for sounding like an idiot. So I am going to try this again shortly. I will cut another piece of leather and dye it and then buff it. And then?? Thanks for your help.

[MADMAX22]

Hey we all started there and I think thats one of the biggest questions for beginners is how to condition, dye, and seal. Even very experienced people have trials and stuff to figure out better ways to do it.

What I would do is try and cut some scraps from your piece say from the edges where you know you cant really use it. Then experiment with it.

Try giving it some conditioner or a decent oil, let that soak in over night. Then try dying it, let that dry up then buff it out. After that you can seal it if you want with something like tan coat or similer. I like using sno-seal and it works pretty good.

Another thing is you can dye it, buff it out, then oil/condition it, then seal it with whatever.

Biggest thing in my experience is let it sit between steps for a good afternoon or day before proceeding to the next step.