Stained Leather Question?

[veedub3]

I made myself a leather iPad case from 5oz veg tan leather and left it natural. I can't remember if I did anything to it other than lightly oiling it with pure neasfoot oil. A few weeks later I started on a nook case for my niece out of a Utility side from Tandy. I had to get back to work so I sat the leather work aside for about a week. (Not realizing I placed the Utility leather on top of my finished iPad case) When I picked it back up yesterday, the Utility side left a stain on the iPad case. The iPad case is mine and I am just going to dye it all black to cover the stains but I started freaking out because i made a bag for a customer out of the same Utility side. Is this stuff going to stain my customer garments or anything she put inside of it, or was it simply a reaction with the veg tan leather? (Pics Below)

The first pic is both pieces of leather (Veg tan and the Oily Utility Leather), and the second is a close up of the stains it left after trying to clean it with a mix of denatured alcohol, distilled water, and white vinegar which did nothing.

Thanks for your help!

Karina

[Bob Blea]

The Utility leather sounds like Latigo, which does have a lot of oils added to it. I know you don't want to store latigo with veg tan because the oils (and the dyes) can bleed out into the veg tan, and I think that is what happened here. I haven't worked with latigo much and I don't make things out of it, so I can't say what risk there is in the oils getting on your customer's clothing. Hopefully someone more knowledgable on that issue than me could answer that.

Bob

[veedub3]

Thanks for your response. I believe you are correct. I went to Tandy yesterday and was told because the leather has oils and waxes it should not be stored next to veg tan leather as the oils may/will stain the untreated leather. As a newbie, I was not aware of this and I have about 8 sides of different leathers, including Herman Oak, WC, Weavers and other suppliers and the Utility leather stained just about all of them. The 3/4 oz Herman Oak was the worst. I did reach out to my customer just to see how she was enjoying her purchase and she was overjoyed so I assumed it was not affected.

This was truly a lesson learned so from now on all different leathers will be stored separately.

Karina

[Bob Blea]

I hope you didn't get too much of your leather damaged. Maybe you can find projects for the stained parts where you can dye them and hide the problem areas.

Bob

[WScott]

wow, gonna go re-organize my rolls right now!

Thanks for posting this

[WScott]

Yep I am all good.

No oil stain transfer though I had some veg tan in intimate contact with rolls and scraps of oil stained.

I re-organized my two shelves of leather in the garage shop, keeping the veg tan to itself (and keeping the good stuff in the house!) and quarantined the oil tanned stuff

Thanks again for this reminder, even found some leather I don't remember buying.

[veedub3]

Glad you didn't have any issues. Out of 8 sides of veg tan, I think about 30% was stained. I did managed to cover the stain on the iPad case I posted above with back dye with success so all is not lost. I will just have quite a few black items being made. But surely a lesson learned for me.

Karina