Endless Search For The Good Colour

[Angie]

Hi there

I started to make some leather belts. I got some nice veg tanned leather from the local leather store. For additional information I wanted to tell you that I am living in Spain, afortunately in an area with important production of shoes, bags and other leather products. Therefor I can buy any kind of leather and other "ingredients" such like dyes, rivets and other kind of metal details, buckles, and everything that is used for manufacturing shoes, bags etc.

These were the advantages.

The disadvantage is. I´m a beginner.

I recently received dying and finishing products from spanish Tandy. Antique Finish (medium brown), Hi-Liter, Eco-Flo Gel Antique (saddle tan), Tan Cote and Super Sheen. Also I have 3 different spanish (or italian?) leather dyes.

So now there is my basket weave stamped belt waiting for getting a colour, tan, or whatever, because its original "naked" colour is sort of "british tourist tan".....

First of all I tried the Tandy stuff. And was quite disappointed. On my pale leather the Hi-Liter and Gel-Antique and Antique Finish come out ugly What do I have to do to get I nicely tanned western style belt?

Below I put some pics of my tanning experiments.

I more or less like the result you see in the second picture. Yesterday I brushed Tan Cote on the scrap piece and this morning I used one of the spanish dyes. Looks interesting.

Do I have to use different, darker colours from the Tandy-ones to get an overall darker look? Or do I have to put many coats of colour?

I put some more close up pics just to make you all smile a little about my clumsy attempts

The 3rd picture is Hi-Liter. The next one is one of the spanish dyes, not bad, but too reddish. The next one is Super Sheen and then the spanish dye, which doesn´t work as the the SS kind of melts away and it gets that "dirty" look. The last one ist the original leather colour with a finger tip of Tan Cote in the middle.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Angie

[Chavez]

Hi from another newbie!

Are you actually dyeing the pieces before applying highlighetrs, antiques, etc? I'm using fiebing's dyes and my problem is usually to get the colours light enough because if I use too much dye or too much oil, the leather goes dark in a moment!

Do you oil your leather? I've read that neatsfoot oil gives a darker effect than evoo, but I've only used evoo so far and its dark enough for me.

Another factor to consider is the quality of your leather. I still have some of my very first low-quality "practice" hide from tandy and any dye looks 10 times worse than the same applied to quality leather.

[jayjay]

Have you tried using an air brush to apply dye? I give my leather one real light coat of neetsfoot oil let dry overnight then hit it with an airbrush. With the air brush you can control the amount or color really easily. I bought a cheap air brush for around $12 USA. Good luck also I use only sprirt dyes and have given up on ECO dye from Tandy.

[Angie]

Usually I don´t want to dye the piece completely. I try to get the colours of those sheridan carvings: natural leather tan with darker impressions. I`m after that slightly yellowish-golden brown with darker brown in the impressions that I like so much.

I also had the idea to dye first and then apply the antique, but to me happens what you describe: It gets too dark all over. Some interesting result I got when I diluted the dye with Tan-Kote, but I am not convinced.

There are some belts in the instructional videos from Tandy with George Hurst which I like very much, but apart from the stamping I can`t get the colour .

The leather I use is veg tanned in France and imported to here (to Spain). Actually I don`t know if the cuality is good as I can´t compare to leathers from different tanners.

Allover dying the leather gives very good results. For this purpose I use the spanish brand spirit dyes they use in the shoe-production. I can buy profesional dyes of ANY colour paying 6,50$ for 17fl oz. Very cheap compared to Fiebings or Tandy....... I go there with an example of the colour I want and they produce it just for me.

BUT, they don´t know much about the antiquing technics and therefor I have to keep on searching the products I need at Tandys or Fiebings.

By the way: My local Tandy Shop doesn`t offer the antique finish from Fiebings. Is the Eco Flo Gel Antique a good choice too? I bought Eco Flo Gel Antique saddle tan and it is just absolutely ugly. I can´t use it. It turns out a reddish orange artificial colour that is just inacceptable. Wuuaaaah....

Now I found out that I can put the stamped belts out to become sun tanned before applying the antique. One or two days in the sun will put a better ground colour to the leather. Before turning the leather out I apply spanish foot oil (pata de buey). I noticed the the leather sun-tanns even under a coat of Tan-Kote.

Thank you for your answers, if I find my desired results, I will keep you informed.....

Edited March 29, 2012 by Angie

[Chavez]

If you find the dye of the right colour, you can always cut it wih iso-propyl alcohol (if the dye is spirit-based) to make the result lighter. I cut any dye 50/50 by default but can make up to 4/1 alcohol to dye if I want a lighter colour.