Getting An Even Finish Using Fiebings Dye

[Dwight]

I'll put another plug in there for the dip dyeing routine.

I tried brushing, . . . swabbing, . . . foam brushing, . . . finally listened to an old pro who has made literally thousands of holsters, . . . his first step is to cut out the shapes, . . . step 2 was to dip dye the pieces in 5 gallon vats.

I tried the dip dye routine, . . . it is "almost" exclusive for me now. I use two cake pans, . . . one for black, . . . one for browns, . . . don't do pink or blue

May God bless,

Dwight

[gauravgodbole]

On 3/10/2011 at 9:42 PM, Treed said:

Getting a good dye job is so dependent on so many things. Leather is a lot like wood in that different areas of the same hide has different absorption qualities. Then you add external problems such as oils, waxes, dirt and other things picked up off the bench, hands and tools.

I clean or deglace my leather before any dying. There are leather products for this, I use oxalic acid (wood workers bleach) to do the job. Keep a spray bottle of it mixed up and spray it on, rub it down with a good shop paper towel.

Leather is a material that is made up of fibers. Loose fibers will absorb differently than tighter so you need to open up the fibers to get an even dye penetration. I do this by handling my leather as I would to case the project for tooling. I give it a quick dunk in water or sponge on a liberal amount. I then let the leather set so that some of the water can be absorbed and swell the fibers. As in tooling when the leather has dried somewhat back to the natural color that I will dye.

Dye is a solid suspended or mixed in a liquid. With time as liquid will evaporate from the mixture you will get very small chunks of the dye. These chunks will not penetrate, and will just set on top. Make sure that your dye is well mixed be for you start. The most difficult way to apply dye is with a brush or dauber. As you touch the leather with a dye loaded dauber the dye is deposited in a large amount and absorbed, but as you move the dauber less and less is deposited. With painting on most surfaces the material is hard and you have time to move the excess paint around to even out the amount applied. With leather there is no extra to move around, basically more dye is absorbed into the leather as you touch the leather then when you finish. The only way to get an even dye job is to load the fibers up evenly with dye on the whole project. To get and even load on the fibers is with a airbrush that evens the flow of dye to the leather or dip dye. I like the dip dye to get better penetration deeper into the leather.

Dip dye, I place the leather into the dye long enough to see some small bubbles start to rise. This is a very short time and made sure that the whole project gets the same time in the dye. As I remove my item from the dye I shake off the excess dye into the bucket. I place the item onto my dye bench and immediately take paper, shop grade towels and remove the excess dye. As you place the item down you will see that areas have absorbed the dye into the leather. There will be areas that the dye has puddled, these are areas the the leather as absorbed what it wants in dye. If left the liquid will find someplace to go or will evaporate into the air. If left you will get a darker spot than the other areas, it will also be the areas that will have dye rub off after the item is finished. The rub off is because there was excess dye left that could not penetrate into the leather. With the paper shop towel I will rub and polish my leather, making sure all excess dye is removed.The biggest problem I had starting out with dyes was trying to be to perfect. As i finished applying the dye I would see light and dark spots so I would immediately start to try an even the color out. I would then get to much dye in one area and not enough somewhere else. I now dip and clean off the excess then leave it alone. You will see area that are darker but as the leather drys most of the color will even out. Sometimes I will have to do a touch up after a complete dry, but most of the time I let the leather dictate the final color. Good wood workers know that each piece of wood will have variances and uses these to produce a one of a kind piece.

Any way these are just my ideas and what has worked for me. I do know that I spent may hours practicing my tooling and other leather working skills. I would never actually practice my dying. After I ruined my fantastic projects, I finally practiced dying and figured out what worked for me.

Bobby Rose

rocknrholsters.com

.

Sorry for reviving such an old post...Bobby do you cut the dyes with alcohol? If you do what ratios do you use?

[bikermutt07]

I have a cheap 3 ounce Tandy hide. The only way to dye it is dip dyeing in full strength. 

If I try and cut the dye with alcohol it comes out very weird looking. It looks a putrid shade of what ever color I'm using. The only way to make this leather look acceptable is dipping.

My point? Sometimes it's the leather not the process. I always test on scraps now before I get too far into a project.

[Treed]

I use a 50-50 split most of the time just to get the colors I want...... It is easier to add more layers of dye to get darker colors...... that depends on the color that I am striving for as on some projects I will use different cuts.... the leather also is a factor which the tanning process can affect the color or absorption process. The biggest thing is to test on scrapes of leather from the same project and keep records. 

[Tacblades]

I have been following this topic a very interesting read. 

I spray my leather with a fine mist spray of water.  Then use a wool dauber,  and just put a good coat on comes out real nice.  This is with the feibings alcohol dye.  I do find it much too dark tho. 

So only just today i have tryed diluting 3 to 1 bio ethanol to dye,  it came out great,  much better colour and more control. Left is just dye,  right is diluted. Its a lot darker than on the picture.  Mahogany. 

 

Edited October 17, 2016 by Tacblades

[bikermutt07]

Following this thread for the last few days reminded me to try something.

In another thread we had mentioned maybe we could use spirit dyes with water. I think somebody brought up scotch and water mix well together.

So just now I tried it on some scrap.

This is fiebings chocolate mixed 50/50 with water. The two on the left are on hermann oak. The one on the right is the crappy Tandy leather I mentioned earlier. I think this looks more like what I think chocolate looks like.

Ill report back after it dries.

[bikermutt07]

Here is Mahogany and light tan mixed with water 50/50.

The mixture looks a little muddy in the container but seems to go on well (this was applied with daubers). I think I will try it on a project soon.

Edited October 18, 2016 by bikermutt07

[KeithHideWorks]

I am getting ready to start dip dying as well.

Has anyone tried the Pro Dye and Neatsfoot oil in a 50:50 ratio or similar vs denatured Alcohol?   I know the ethanol is a solvent and will dry out, just wondering if this will keep the dye from dying out too much (problem with regular dye vs the Pro, Pro seems to have more oil in it).

I am about to order some 2 gallon buckets with twist lids to keep this in. Don't want to waste $80 worth of dye and $30 worth of neatsfoot oil if i don't have to. 

This will be for holsters, belts, ect...

[bikermutt07]

55 minutes ago, KeithHideWorks said:

I am getting ready to start dip dying as well.

Has anyone tried the Pro Dye and Neatsfoot oil in a 50:50 ratio or similar vs denatured Alcohol?   I know the ethanol is a solvent and will dry out, just wondering if this will keep the dye from dying out too much (problem with regular dye vs the Pro, Pro seems to have more oil in it).

I am about to order some 2 gallon buckets with twist lids to keep this in. Don't want to waste $80 worth of dye and $30 worth of neatsfoot oil if i don't have to. 

This will be for holsters, belts, ect...

I don't think you want to mix any oil with the dyes. They aren't really oil based. Even though Fiebings says "Professional Oil Dye", it's not an oil based product. It is still alcohol based. It works better then the regular, but it is still spirit based.

When I first started diluting dyes I didn't have any alcohol close at hand. My impatience led me to trying mineral spirits.

I wound up with a small amount of what looked like a mahogany lava lamp.

[Sheilajeanne]

Based on my limited experience with dyes:

Fiebing's Pro dyes are the best I've tried so far.

Fiebings alcohol based, and Eco-flo water based don't go on evenly UNLESS the leather is slightly damp. I had a real disaster when I tried dyeing a cell phone case with Fiebings, and also a couple of other items with the Eco-flo. Several people suggested dampening the leather, and that did the trick!

Here's the cell phone case after the initial dyeing, then the finished product:

The background was done with Fiebing's alcohol based dye, and the flower with Eco-flo

Hmm...still need to work a bit on those edges! 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Sheilajeanne