Help On Identifying Stains

[Sarah C]

Any help would be appreciated.

I have yet to be able to make my tooling pop out in black finish applications like in "blackjack."

And I was just curious about the white coloring.

I was going to purchase a few different stains to try them out but honestly I am on a very tight budget and would like some help in identifying them before I buy a bunch of stuff and it's not right.

[Sir Derrin]

Scroll through this thread and make sure you watch the vidoe link at the end. I found it pretty informative....Hopefully it will answer some of your questions....

http://leatherworker...showtopic=46025

[Sarah C]

Thanks, but that thread was about removing the white haze from black dye applications. I am sort of asking the opposite! The tooling seems to pop out with a gray sort of color rather than a pure black color... and I want that. I emailed the shop owner (it's on etsy) but no luck yet. It looks like the rest of her color palette is simply the eco-flo high liters, so I'm assuming this one probably doesn't have much of an extensive "process" per se.

And I love the white finish, I'm thinking maybe it's just some watered down cova color, since I can't find any kind of white "dye" that is eco-friendly (both her shop and mine are eco-friendly).

Thank you for trying, though!

[David8386]

Not sure about the black but it looks like the white is just white acrylic paint watered down and not wiped off well so that it shows the leather through in places but fills the lettering.

David

[Sir Derrin]

That is what I get for scan reading while watching TV sorry about that..

[ReneeCanady]

Well my 2 cents here would be that the "blackjack" was already predyed leather when it was bought. I only use veg tan, but I did get some kind of grey leather for Christmas the year I got all my tools and played with it for about 2 seconds before I realized I liked the veg tan much better. With that being said, when I tried tooling the grey leather I got it didn't work so well because not only is it predyed or but it also has a slight finish on it. The finish almost makes casing the leather impossible. If you can't case it the tooling will not pop like it should and when I used the beveler with much more force than I would have to with a peice of veg tan it gave the same look at the photo for "blackjack". Almost as if the color you are calling white is actually what the inner part of the predyed black leather looks like (like when I hit the grey leather it was lighter in the area that was beveled naturally). One other reason that makes me think this is because the beveling on "blackjack" is rough. You shouldn't see all the tool marks like that...meaning I think they hit it pretty hard to make the impressions. Again this is all my opinion, I can't be certain.

Edited March 23, 2013 by ReneeCanady

[Sarah C]

Thanks, everyone!

I am not certain the black is predyed, only because that's how hard this person does all her tooling. You can see it in the rest of the items in her shop, all her beveling is like that. And it's obvious it's a practice piece shape (because I use those too, lol. they're perfect!), and I don't think those come pre-dyed anywhere that I'm aware of. I wonder if it isn't some watered down cova color to highlight the cuts and then wiped off (i.e. the white being used as a sort of high liter), before the black is dyed on, so it creates a sort of resist?

I just hate wasting leather, maybe i'll find some scraps to try it out on! I'm sure I have something here I can use...

I emailed the shop owner a while ago. I hope she answers me and it's not a "trade secret" or anything!!!!!

[Sarah C]

I also just had a thought... what if the leather was dyed first, and then tooled? Renee, you said you got impressions like that from a pre-dyed leather, maybe she dyed it herself first and then tooled it? I bet that would give those results! *runs off to try stuff*

[ReneeCanady]

Maybe you are on to something there!

[Leela Valley Leather]

It is possible that there is no other colour there other than black, we may just be seeing reflected light as the white in the lettering looks like reflected light to me.

[whiteeugene]

I wonder if they finished it then used some kind of a resist maybe two or three cotes let that dry and came back and wiped it with acrylic paint the paint would stall in the low spots and would wipe off of the flat spots I have used this to fill in letters as lone as you let the resist dry good the paint will not stick you can wipe it of with a damp cloth.

Doug

[Phatdaddy]

I've seen a number of members use techniques like this:

One of the dog collars that I sell the most is the one pictured below. It's black leather, and "antiqued" with Eco Flo Gold Frost. They also sell a Silver Frost.

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=66095

I'm not sure if this will achieve what you are looking for, but I thought I would link it anyway.

Kevin

[Sarah C]

OOOO thanks everyone! I have plenty of stuff to try now!

I've seen a number of members use techniques like this:

http://leatherworker...attach_id=66095

I'm not sure if this will achieve what you are looking for, but I thought I would link it anyway.

Kevin

Where do you find the frost colors? I don't see them on tandy's site

[Phatdaddy]

I live in Canada and I'm used to the Tandy store here not having the same stuff available in the US, so I thought nothing of it.

I'm not sure where it comes from tbh. (maybe discontinued now since they launched the professional waterstains)

I did a google search and see there is some available from ebay.

Others have even used silver/gold/bronze/copper colored paint and have very good results.

Kevin