Yellow Dye

[Cbaileypb77]

I am at my whits end. I have tried every yellow dye and acrylic paint at Tandy and it all looks AWEFUL! I have tried Eco flow sunshine yellow, professional water stain yellow and even cova color and am disappointed with them all!

Sunshine yellow, at best makes the leather look jaundiced.

Water stain, if I apply it heavy enough to get into my tooling, it turns the leather brown, more applications turn it darker brown.

Cova color, makes the leather look and feel like plastic. By the time I put it on thick enough for a bright color, it fills up my tooling and dulls it down.

Please help!! It is so frustrating applying a product that is supposed to do something and have it just look awful. I get requests for yellow belts more than anything else (SCA) and have decided to turn them down because I can't produce anything I would be proud for someone to wear!

[Studio-N]

by their nature, anything that has dye stuff in it will never be bright. One missing component is that there is no 'white' component to the dyes/stains.

Covas are paint so you can mix them to create a color and are brighter than any dye/stain will ever be. I don't think you'll have a good solution to this one.

It also sounds like you didn't get to the finishing part. Some of the brightness will come from the light reflection you get from a hard finish like super sheen (acrlyic)

or a lacquer (neatlac). Take one of your failed pieces and add a finish and see the difference.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Studio-N

[Cbaileypb77]

I have tried one finish but not a shiny one. I am not concerned with it being a brilliant yellow, just recognizable as yellow from a distance as well as up close.

[DoubleC]

I recently did a wallet that was inlaid and had a carved full moon on it http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?app=galleryℑ=21025 I used cova or similar colors on the moon, may have been angelus. You need to start with you paint watered down and build to a color you like so it won't look plastic. I never use paint full strength for that reason. As you add watered down paint on top of other paint it will work more like a dye in texture and also give you the color you want. I have never colored an entire belt that way so it will be tedious. But it will work. Cheryl

[Cyberthrasher]

Fiebing's Pro Oil yellow, thinned down, will be yellow if your leather is white enough. If you don't thin it, you'll get a light tan color.

The problem you're going to face is that yellow is such a light color it's more susceptible to the color of the leather to begin with. Some of the more russet colored leathers are going to have a harder time becoming yellow. That said, I've only had a couple of pieces of leather that were dark enough to be an issue.

[Matt S]

I like powdered turmeric mixed with alcohol but it is not a glowing bright yellow by any stretch.

[Tina]

Here's a picture of a map I dyed with Angelus yellow spirit dye (old map of Sweden). What I do is I delute the dye and then "paint" layer by layer until I'm happy.

[immiketoo]

Tina, that's badass.

[raysouth]

I have had better luck achieving good yellow color with the Angelus spirit dye on light leather. If paint is something that can be used, I would take a look at the various colors offered by Angelus.

David, at www.turtlrfeather.com has color chart of all the paints on site, covering both the dye and paints.

As cyber stated above, a dark leather will not show yellow very well unless paint is used.

Tina, your map of Sweden is great!!!!!!!!

God Bless.

Ray

[Cbaileypb77]

Thank you for the response everyone! Ray, that link does not seem to work for me.

[Tina]

Thank you for the response everyone! Ray, that link does not seem to work for me.

http://www.turtlefeathers.net/ try this one :-)