Dying Leather

[Thelovingheritage]

Do I dye my leather before or after tooling? I've been dying after is this right?

[artycpt]

Yup. That is right. I case and tool it, oil it, then dye it. Allowing for sufficient time between each step.

[JLSleather]

There is no "right" about this one. You could dye the leather first, though if you're tooling it may be easier to adjust dye shades if you tool first. If you're stamping (geometrics, basketweave, seed, etc) it wont matter one bit.

I oil AFTER the dye, but with a little practice you'll figure which you personally prefer. Here's a picture in leather from a couple years ago. There IS NO tooling, just a pattern that someone on the site uploaded that I decided to paint. Fiebings spirit dyes. No tooling. Red thinned about 20:1 if I remember right (and I'm not saying I do). No tooling, though.

No tooling. CLICK picture to see it colored.

The avatar to the left, on the other hand, is tooled. Tooled, then background dyed full-strength chocolate brown, then pale green/brown mix, then just thinned brown. Light oil, then Tan-Kote.

Edited January 9, 2014 by JLSleather

[treybecca]

In order to properly get the impressions you would like with tooling you would tool first then dye. The most important thing in tooling is properly cased leather which would be difficult to achieve with dyed leather.