Bringing Out Grain On Horse Hide?

[UberSquid]

The first holster I made with Horse hide I used Tandy's Eco Flow All In One to dye it followed by Super Shene and a top coat of neutral Shoe Polish. I got a beautiful finish that gave me an almost three dimensional look to the grain of the horse hide and a nice shiny finish without looking plastic. Unfortunately the Eco Flow dyes the Linen thread and looks like crap so I've been trying to change my process a bit. I tried using Fiebings Professional Brown Oil Dye both hand rubbed and air brushed, then water formed, finished and sealed. The hand rubbed gets me a bit of definition of the grain but the air brushed gives me such a beautiful even finish that you can't see the grain at all! I'm thinking that maybe using a dark brown antique rubbed in then buffed off will get me the look I'm trying to achieve. Then if it isn't quite dark enough I could go back over with a diluted brown stain in the air brush to darken it up a bit.

Has anyone else tried to accentuate the grain in horse hide? What did you do to bring it out? I really like working with horse hide for the grain but it just doesn't fit my needs since I want to use lighter thread to offset the darker colors of the leather. As a last resort I've ordered some brown linen thread and will go to back to the Eco Flow to get the effect I want but I'd really like to be able to keep the lighter colored thread.

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Jeremiah

[Johnny B]

Never worked with Horse hide but I can say that if I want the thread to stay looking the same I simply glue up my holsters, sheaths,etc with contact cement. After I have completely finished dying, I then sew up the sheath or holster. After dying I have a crock pot with hot bee's wax/mink oil/neats foot oil mixture that I dip the item into. Once the item has soaked for about 30 seconds I put it into a toaster over on warm for about a minute. I then buff with a very soft buffing wheel, one I use strictly for buffing leather. This process waterproofs the item inside and out and gives a nice satin finish. The heat from the oven hardens the leather giving me a rigid holster or sheath.

[UberSquid]

The process I wound up using was to glue the holster together. Then I sanded the edges, burnished them, grooved the stitch lines and then hit it with a coat of light brown Fiebings professional oil dye with the air brush. Once that was dry I cam back with a heavy layer of Fiebings Mahogany Antique Finish dabbed on with a sponge, let it sit for one minute then buffed it until no more came off on the paper towel. I used q-tips with a bit of alcohol to get the stitch groove cleaned out and then let it sit for 48 hours in a warm room.

I stitched it with natural linen and there was zero dye transfer. The grain really pops out, my stitching is nice and clean, the molding didn't change the coloring at all. I'm very happy with this process. I'll post pics when I get a chance.

I still need to seal it and do the final buffing but I think this is going to be my process from now on. It's a bit time and labor intensive but it gets the look I want and should be very durable.