Advice For Dyeing Rawhide

[gbsbullet]

I have been a visitor of this site for many years and can usually find the answer to my question without having to post (seems like everything I come across someone else has already figured out) but this one doesn't seem to have been answered before.

My father bought a set of rawhide romal reins out of Mexico. The rawhide appears to have been bleached and he can't stand the color so he asked if I could figure something out. I have never worked with rawhide before so I'm unsure of the best way to go about this.

I know a lot of people use coffee to dye their strands but this is done before the braiding begins. We both agreed that a similar color would be good if we could get it to take without destroying the reins. My concern is that if I soaked them in coffee the braid on either the body or the buttons would loosen or curl and the reins would be ruined? I also thought spraying or wiping them down might be safer and producer a good result? Lastly, I thought maybe I would dye some rawhide cream then work the conditioner into the reins (since the conditioner is supposed to be safe for finished products)?

Has anyone ever tried something like this before that could lend some advice? If not maybe some insight as to what could be expected if I follow any of the outlined ideas above? Any advice would be very much appreciated. I have attached a few pictures of the reins so you can see what I'm working with.

Thanks in advance.

[bucksnort]

I think your instincts are probably right on not soaking them. Most of these reins are thin strings over a rope core. A rubbed or sprayed dye should work fine. I would think your idea of adding dye to a conditioner would work, but if it didn't it might make it difficult to get anything else to absorb afterwards. Good luck, Buck

[gbsbullet]

Thanks Buck. I too was concerned that these might be over a rope core but couldn't tell for sure. My thoughts over the last couple of days align with yours. If I don't get any more ideas in the next couple of days I think I will spray them down and see how that works. Then depending upon the results maybe try the dyed conditioner.

I'll post some pictures after I try something and give some feedback on what I learned.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[Tex181]

Have you looked at Youtube - El Rincon Del Soguero. He uses instant coffee in his braiding soap to give the work a brownish aged look.

OG

[gbsbullet]

OG, I have not seen that video but will check it out. I might even have a small jar of instant coffee sitting around collecting dust, who knew it would ever come in handy.

Thanks for the tip and I'll take a look.

[bucksnort]

Sounds like that may be the solution. Buck

[gbsbullet]

So I successfully dyed the reigns using coffee and got an effect that is pretty reasonable. First I lightly misted the reigns with coffee and swung them around to remove any heavy excess caught in buttons or that built up around the bottom. I then let it dry over night and repeated again the next day. This colored the rawhide back to a tone that appeared very natural and I could have stopped there but I wanted to see if they would get a little darker (attached are two pictures where part of the reigns were dyed and the romal was left unchanged to be able to see the contrast in the color). As a note, there was a little curling of the rawhide in a few spots making it somewhat rough to handle (particularly on the ring knots and up near the loop where the romal is attached.

At this point I was concerned that any more liquid would make the curling worse and also not really darken the hide any further. So, I switched to the method suggested in the comments. I got a bit of rawhide cream and mixed in some instance coffee until in was a medium tan. I then rubbed this into the reigns making sure to evenly spread it over the reigns and work it in between the knots with a small brush. I let that sit for about 24 hours then took a clean terrycloth rag and wiped it down to remove the excess. This not only softened the reigns (expected) but also relaxed the turned up edges on the areas previously mentioned. The color wasn't too bad either, as you can see there is some build up on the edges of the strands where the conditioner settled in a little deeper but over all the color is nice and expect to weather even better. (attached are a handful of pictures of the process with better lighting with a nicer contrasting background.

Pictures Continued

[bucksnort]

Looks good, should weather nicely. Forgot to mention to you that they don't bevel the strings on most of those reins & they will curl & have really sharp edge if they get wet. Glad to see it worked out for you & we all learned a little from it. Buck