How To Remove Leather Dye?

[Vikefan]

How does one remove dye from a belt or some other object they are dying? I recently made a belt and started to put the wrong (darker) brown on it, I need to remove that dye to be able to dye it the proper color.

Help

[dirtclod]

Theirs not anyway to get dye off that i know of. Maybe somebody else knows some kind of trick to get it off.

[BAD HIDE]

Well, you simply dye the whole thing darker and promptly get started on another belt. Dark brown or black carved items still will sell eventually, so it's not completely the end of the world.

Alcohol or other solvents might lighten the dye a bit, but not much if at all. Dye by it's nature penetrates pretty far in, and you'll most likely ruin the surface if you try anything too drastic to get it out.

I've spilled dye on several non-porous surfaces and it was a hell of a mess getting them somewhat back to normal (and it's still pretty stained). The 3oz Angelus Dye bottles are very tippy.

[Spinner]

I have used acetone to pull some color (not all) out of a piece before. Granted, it wasn't assembled yet so it dried fairly quickly and I have noticed no damage to the leather itself. The color wasn't completely gone, but it did lighten the piece a couple of shades so I could bring it back up to a better color. Oxalic acid might be another route to go as it is leather/wood bleach. Might get you to a point where you can lighten it up enough to work with.

To be honest though, it might be less work to do as the others have said and simply start over. Also keep in mind, any tooling will be damaged via the use of chemicals as most that will remove color will be wet chems and will raise a good portion of the detail.