Losing Detail After Dyeing......

[RustyReb]

Pretty new to this craft and first time posting.......just finished a nice tooled belt. Wanted to get a fairly light brown color but wanted it to be deeply dyed due to high wear, so I added Feibings light brown to denatured alcohol and used a dauber.....soaked it really good. Seemed to have lost a lot of the crisp deatail in my tooling. So....the question is, how do you get a deeply dyed product without losing detail? It also turned out a lot darker than what I was shooting for!

Thanks!

Reb

[JLSleather]

Re-wetting of the leather can cause that, and some leather is not as tight grained as others. So, first start with a good piece of leather. Next, with a solid color you may find it better to dye the leather, THEN stamp (I've always thought it strange when the same guy who tells you not to re-wet the leather also tells you to dye, dye, oil, finish, etc...).

I understand that's not the color you were after, but I personally think if a guy had a row o' stitchin down each side of the keeper loop it'd be just fine. Future, really is that simple - if it's still too rich for you, thin it more.

[Cyberthrasher]

so I added Feibings light brown to denatured alcohol and used a dauber.....soaked it really good.

There's both of your problems.

The more dye you apply, the darker it's going to get. It also sounds like that "Soaking it in" caused the tooling to soak up that moisture and undo all of your hard work at tooling. It really doesn't take that much dye to color the leather thoroughly.