How Exactly Do You "dip" Dye Your Leather?

[electrathon]

Going full strength can lead to so VERY dark coloring. Usually tan is dark brown, light brown is dark brown, medium brown is way dark brown, dark brown is almost black and so on. DO TEST PIECES FIRST! Let the piece dry for a few hours, the color will change.

Also, one color will dye will not produce the sane color on the leather. You need to know the tannery the leather came from to make sure it is the same.

[JLSleather]

Well, reducing the dye will give you MORE LIQUID. As for matching, there are various levels of OCD. If you want to make belts, and you're insistent about matching, then you will likely want a splitter, or at least a very good skiver. A thousand times I've seen nice looking belts I thought were assaulted by being given a leather keeper that doesn't match.

With natural (undyed) leather, the 7 or 8 oz leather you used for the body and the 4 oz (ish) leather you used for the keeper don't match. The color is not quite right, or the grain is a bit different, etc. Often, applying a finish will make the difference more obvious. Here's the 'work arounds"...

There is the antique puke. Some dump that junk on everything they do -- it's purpose is to HIDE (the story goes, it's to accent, but you'll see soon enough).

Some geniuses have come up with the "plan" to dye everything dark, and then claim that doesn't matter. But, you can tell, more often than not. And it's not something you have to go looking for... if it doesn't match, you'll see it. It's less obvious than on natural leather, but still ....

Oh, and there ARE those who tell you that hermann oak leather is consistent across different weights and always the same. It makes a nice story, gotta give em that! But you can get different shades and textures even within the same hide.

Really, if you want it to ACTUALLY match, cut the keepers from the same hide, and split it down to the proper thickness.

[TheThiefPrince]

Well, a year later I finally got the nerve to try dip dyeing tonight and I must say, it's marvelous. Screw those damn wool daubers and such! Although I'm still learning a few things (i.e. Mixing ratios, dipping times, etc.) I'm really liking the way I'm able to actually see the colors Fiebing's color chart shows on my pieces. I've read and read about how dark they get just swabbing the Pro oil dyes on and knew there had to be a better way, and there is! Hints: Don't waste your money on Fiebing's Dye Reducer, just use denatured alcohol (A rep at Fiebing's told me this over the phone. I asked why they wouldn't ship the reducer to California [even though I live in Ohio; I was curious] and he said just use Denatured alcohol, it's the same thing!) and mix the dye and alcohol at a 5:1 ratio and you'll see that after a 10-15 second dip, that the real color (the swatch color) is shown.

 

What a difference! And due to the volume it produces by adding the alcohol, it quintuples the amount of dye you have!

[silverwingit]

On matching shades...

+1 on needing not only the same hide but taken from the same part of the hide and split down. Leather more towards the belly will take dye differently than back or neck leather.

Also,

+1 on diluting. That's the only way so control the shade unless you want your products to be very dark. 

Lastly, I find that I get my best results by letting the dye completely soak the leather. Fewer issues when finishing edges and the only way I've found to ensure uniformity of shade. I leave my workpieces to soak until they quit bubbling. I use Pro Oil dye. It takes a few hours to dry before I can continue working, but overnight works best.

If I do these things I can count on the shades of the different pieces of leather that make of a project to be the same.

Michelle

[KeithHideWorks]

How and with what exactly do you dilute?   

 

Thanks!

[TheThiefPrince]

Denatured alcohol. Using a 2/1 mixture (2 parts alcohol, 1 part dye) doesn't dilute the oil dye enough in my opinion. I diluted at more of a 8/1 mixture to lighten the dye and gradually build up the color on the piece. 

[TomG]

I generally dilute around 4:1.  But, it also depends on the color of the dye and the color you want to achieve.  For example, Red.  Most of the time, I've cut it 2:1. maybe a tad more.  For Pink, it's closer to 20:1`.  Also, I've recently discovered that the Oxblood makes a better Pink than the red does.

In addition, every time I make a new batch, I do 2 things.  1) I use an empty container and measure the alcohol and dyes and mix it in that.  I then pour it into my dip tanks. I usually just mix enough to fill the tank. I don't pour the full strength dye and alcohol into the dip tank and try to mix it. You really don't know how much room you have left in the tank, unless it's totally empty or it's got graduations on it that you can still see. Say you figure that you need 15 oz to bring the level up to where you want it.  So, at 4:1 you need 12oz of DA and 3oz of dye.  If you really only needed 12oz, you've got to fiddle with how much DA you've poured and how much room you have and mess with adjustments.  Just get an empty screw lid milk jug and mix it it that...

and 2) I cut a piece of whatever side I'm currently using the most and do a test dip. As others have said, every side can dye differently.  A test dip let's you know where you are right now.

I also have some Preval glass jars I get from Tandy and some air brush jars.  I can use a syringe to make small test samples and figure out ratios without a lot of waste.  I know it's kind of anal, but I spend half my time, it seems, answering customers questions on colors. So I like to know that when I dip 50 straps, they will all look reasonably identical.

Play with it and to test strips at different dilution rations.  And for your sanities sake, write the results down. In 2 years when you need to make a duplicate of an item that you make Baby Blue, you can look up the mix.

 

 

[Iron40ny]

I punched my holes in the leather before dip dyeing and the area around the holes was darker. Should I punch the holes after dyeing?

[TheThiefPrince]

If you're looking for more uniformity, that's what I would do. When you punch the holes before dying, you're creating more surface area for the dye to penetrate (ie: the edges of the holes you've punched) So, instead of having a flat sheet of leather where the dye will penetrate in from the top and the bottom, now you have dye penetrating around the edges inside the hole you've already punched. Hopefully that makes sense? 

 

Attached is a photo that will hopefully help explain what I'm saying. The dye would only penetrate the blue area from the top and bottom of the piece whereas the red would soak in through the top and bottom and the edges of the punched hole as well.

[silverwingit]

I think we see dip dyeing a bit differently. My goal in dip dyeing is to completely saturate the leather with the dye, through and through. I make sure that no bubbles rise from the leather while it is submerged. I often have to run the workpiece through the tank of dye more than once to achieve this. 

The final shade is determined by diluting the dye, where the dilution factor is determined experimentally on a piece from the same part of the same hide as the workpiece. (This is important as sections from different parts of the same hide can take the dye differently.)

If you fully saturate the leather, it shouldn't matter if the holes are punched first or not. If the dye is struck through and through, a cut will have uniform color from the grain to the flesh sides.

At least that's the way I see it.