Fiebings Dye

[BillinOK]

I bought quarts of Fiebings Russet, Black and Medium brown dyes. I was dyeing some light import skirting from tandy today, with the medium brown. After drying for about 90 minutes or so, I started seeing streaks ( and alot of them) of emerald green showing up. At first I thought it was a reaction with the neats foot oil that I had put on the outside, but then the streaks showed up on the inside which did not have the oil on. I tried rubbing and that didn't help. Then tried a light coat of neats foot oil. That took out the streaks until the oil dried and the streaks re-appeared. I then put on a coat of fiebings Aussie conditioner (paste) and that finally helped.

Anone had this problem? I'm wondering if there was something in the leather.....but I used Tandy's pro dye on a piece of the same side of leather last week and it dyed ok then.

[whinewine]

I bought quarts of Fiebings Russet, Black and Medium brown dyes. I was dyeing some light import skirting from tandy today, with the medium brown. After drying for about 90 minutes or so, I started seeing streaks ( and alot of them) of emerald green showing up. At first I thought it was a reaction with the neats foot oil that I had put on the outside, but then the streaks showed up on the inside which did not have the oil on. I tried rubbing and that didn't help. Then tried a light coat of neats foot oil. That took out the streaks until the oil dried and the streaks re-appeared. I then put on a coat of fiebings Aussie conditioner (paste) and that finally helped.

Anone had this problem? I'm wondering if there was something in the leather.....but I used Tandy's pro dye on a piece of the same side of leather last week and it dyed ok then.

Bill, I would guess that the green streaks are excess pigment that didn't seep into the leather. The oil possibly prevented absorption & the pigment was left on the surface as the alcohol/vehicle evaporated. Take a cloth & rub it- does it 'crock', or rub off on the cloth? If so, that's what happened. A good practice is to always shake your dyes first, as the pigment often settles at the bottom of bottles of spirit dyes. The old Omega dyes had a lot of pigment which needed to be agitated before spraying or applying. Alcohol or deglazer might remove this... You should email Fiebings to see what they say (& I always feel one should go to the source first).

Another (remote?) possibility is that there is a reaction to something (oil, tanning method, bad dye batch, whatever)- Email Fiebings if you have the same result on a different piece of leather from a different hide.

russ

[BillinOK]

Russ, I heard back from Fiebings. They thought there was probably something in the tannery method of the imported leather. Suggested a thin coat of neats foot compound. They also suggested switching to oil dye. I hate to set aside almost 3 new quarts of dye, for the oil....but that may be the way I go. I will also try shaking up the regular dye. I have never used oil dye that I can remember. I may really like it. Thanks Russ for the help.

Bill

[JeffGC]

Every time I call Fiebing's, their suggestion is to switch to their oil dye. If the problem is their spirit dyes, why don't they just correct the issue.

Jeff

[BillinOK]

Well I tried different leather (Wicket & Craig) today with the Fiebings medium brown dye. Shook the bottle good this time. Nothing on the leather. Same emerald green streaks appeared. Hopefully the aussie conditioner will take it out.

[whinewine]

Well I tried different leather (Wicket & Craig) today with the Fiebings medium brown dye. Shook the bottle good this time. Nothing on the leather. Same emerald green streaks appeared. Hopefully the aussie conditioner will take it out.

Bill, that's just plain weird. W&C is a top notch leather, and I'm sure others on the forum who use W&C regularly would have complained if all their Fiebings med brown would have left green streaks... W&C is a Canadian company who does their American tanning in Curwensville, PA (not terribly far from where I live), so Fiebings' excuse about 'imported leather' is a pretty far stretch of the imagination. I would definitely begin to suspect that that particular dye batch is faulty, contrary to Fiebings' simply telling you to use their oil dye.

Question: how are their other dyes? Do they leave the green streaks? If not, I'd say that that particular med brown is just a bad batch. AND, if so, ALL IS NOT LOST: the med brown makes an excellent base to use before applying the spirit black dye.

Another narrowing down of another possibility- how are you applying the dye?= dauber, spray, dipping, or what? If dauber, perhaps there is some crap on the dauber(s)...??

I hope this at least helps a little.

Sincerely,

russ

[JLSleather]

Bill - I had this problem with these spirit dyes, LONG time ago. They contain a sediment, basically little color "flakes". This is oversimplified, but these "flakes" suspend in the reducer. Some of the particles were either too large or too many to be absorbed. The darker colors are worse than the lighter.

I would suggest that you let them settle out (NOT shaking/mixing it in). Siphon the dye from the bottle without sucking up the plates from the bottom, put it in a different bottle. I still use these dyes, haven't seen that issue in a long time. Saves MOST of the dye.

[Urban Goth]

I've had the same trouble with the purple, was fine when I put a light coat on, but when I made it darker I got green/gold streaks through it, looked really horrible. I did find though when I sealed it 99% of it went away.

Also to JLSLeather, when you pour the dye off to try and get rid of the flecks do you filter it though something?