When To Dye Tooled Wristband?

[Moodybird]

I'm about to attempt adding dye to vegtanned leather for the 1st time. I'm having trouble finding info on when to dye the leather. Is this to be done after the tooling is complete and if so will there be any chance of losing the stamped details?

Also should the leather need to be deglazed to accept the dye? I'm starting w/ pre-cut leather wristband blanks and will be using Fiebing's Grey Leather Dye with hopes of achieving a simple solid color.

[Harag]

There is a topic in the getting started forum which might be of help. it contains a list of steps, scroll though it as the list was altered several times in the topic.

Hope this helps.

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=48166

[Moodybird]

Thanks so much for directing me to this thread & sorry I didn't see it before. This answers many questions I've had and will help tremendously as I explore the realm! :D

[Cyberthrasher]

A note on "Grey" dye - you probably won't get satisfying results with it. Fiebing's pulled it from the shop/lineup because it was crap.

I have, however, come up with some cool greys by thinning Fiebing's royal blue and adding a touch of black back into it.

[cjdevito]

As an added FWIW, you can get a good grey with tandy's eco-flo smoke black stain. It's finicky and may come out more brown than gray depending on the piece of leather & the application, but I have gotten some genuinely nice greys with it.

Cyberthrasher, you wouldn't happen to have any pics of stuff you've done with the fiebings royal blue + black, would you? I'm always on the look out for ways to do grey.

[Cyberthrasher]

As an added FWIW, you can get a good grey with tandy's eco-flo smoke black stain. It's finicky and may come out more brown than gray depending on the piece of leather & the application, but I have gotten some genuinely nice greys with it.

Cyberthrasher, you wouldn't happen to have any pics of stuff you've done with the fiebings royal blue + black, would you? I'm always on the look out for ways to do grey.

The best one I got was accidental and got covered up with the real color shortly after. The other one I did on purpose came out a little too dark and for times sake I moved on. But, I started with the Royal Blue and thinned it 50/50, which came out with a blueish hued grey. I was attempting to add the black in to get rid of a little bit of the blue tones, but I added too much for the mix. If memory serves me, my next step was going to be something like 25 drops blue, 50 drops alcohol, and about 2 or 3 drops of black. That was going to be to finalize the ratios and then I'd do the math to get some more workable numbers. I need to revisit it to get an actual recipe, but I know it's workable with that kind of process.

[cjdevito]

Thanks, I'll have to give it a try.