Cleaning Leather In Preparation For Dyeing

[hidepounder]

What kind of consistency is your acid solution?

I'm worried about wetting the leather too much on the surface and diminishing the detail of the tooling.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

I mix 40 cc's to 16 ozs of water (Ihave a 20cc scoop). Take a trimmed woolskin, saturate it with the oxalic acid solution and carefully apply it evenly over the tooling. Stop and lightly scrub and dirty spots, pencil marks, eetc., bu tDO NOT saturate the leather.......you'll be just fine!

Hope this helps....

Bobby

[js5972]

I have done a few tests with Oxalic acid. It cleans, but always seems to darken the leather. I do a lot of color dyeing, so I usually want the leather to be as light in color as possible. Does anyone else experience this?

[R Petersen]

Hi again all. I'm the original poster, and as I just noticed that there's still a bit of life in this thread, I decided to post an update. I have had to take a long break from leatherworking, and have only just started up again, but I have just dyed for the first time, and I must say that I am very pleased with the result. For those who were worried, I can say that I used nothing but water and the dye itself - I might use oxalic acid if I ever need to dye something really evenly(sp?), but I like the (very) minor variations that were left after dying with no cleaning beforehand.

However, the reason that I'm updating is also that I were in a leather shop the other day, and had a strange experience. The shop is one of those old, dedicated, 'existed since 18xx' shops, so they know what they're doing, or so you'd think. Anyway, I bought some dye and the lady at the desk asked me if I had everything else needed for dying. I asked her to clarify, thinking that she might have a tip or two, and the first thing she mentioned was acetone for cleaning... I didn't buy any, but still, I were surprised after what I have read here. Maybe it's just some regional thing?

[Viking Queen]

Sounds like you've gotten great advice here about the use of acetone on your leatherwork. Trust the forum members.

I just wanted to comment on your use of the english language, since you mentioned it is not your "native" language.

You've done a great job with your grammar, and punctuation. I'm so impressed! It must be daunting to jump on to a forum and post in your non-native language, but keep up the good postings! Good luck with the leather work too!

Take care, Viking Queen:You_Rock_Emoticon:

[Phatdaddy]

Ironically I logged on today to look for this thread as i'm making a sheath and inadvertantly must have had dirty hands and got some grime on my project.

When cleaning the leather with oxalic acid or in my case today lemon juice do you have to do anything afterwards? Just let it dry before dying? thank you.

[hidepounder]

Ironically I logged on today to look for this thread as i'm making a sheath and inadvertantly must have had dirty hands and got some grime on my project.

When cleaning the leather with oxalic acid or in my case today lemon juice do you have to do anything afterwards? Just let it dry before dying? thank you.

I've heard some people say that you need to rinse off when using lemon juice. I've never done that and heve never had a problem. I use oxalyc acid all the time and I don't do anything but let let it dry.

Bobby

[Chief31794]

Use either Lemon Juice or Wood Bleach lightly and then just let it dry. I normally wipe the entire area so there are no differences seems to help keep the dye and finish more consistent.

Ken