Hand Painting A Tooled Leather Saddle

[RhiannonWildfire]

Hello! I am wondering if anyone can explain to me the process I would need to follow and the products I should use to paint one of my tooled leather saddles and other leather tack. Until yesterday I actually had no idea that those neat colored saddles were actually just painted, and that is totally up my ally My concern in doing this is the durability of the products.

Thank you to anyone who can help me out!

Rhiannon

[Wild Bill46]

Rhiannon Welcome,

Im not versed well enough to be the authority on this subject, at least not yet ! hohoho

But I have seen many explanations, and/or tutorials on this great LWN site.

Im sure there is help here. good luck Wild Bill46

[oltoot]

Yes you will receive numerous replies. Regardless of the part of the task they address there will be some basics that will need to be part of your approach. The first step will be a partial disassembly, then a thorough cleaning, then removal of whatever finishes are used and there are quite a few different ones in use in the leather world. Your best chance at a single product approach to take care of everything will be to go to a shoe store and get a large portion of something called deglazing fluid or deglazer and use according to directions. (try it out first somewhere that you exposed in your take apart that does not show when reassembled) If this removes all finishes and strips out the oil from the surface then you will be ready to paint. Afterwhich you will first have to restore the oil the deglazer removed. There are some fine products that will not darken, I recommend something called Lexol Nf. Again try out first. Then a finish, then reassembly. You may, after all the good advice you will receive just decide to put this project in the "Too Hard" box and keep on yearning for a painted saddle. Unless! you can get some good help for the take apart-put back together part cause it really is harder than falling off of a log to get it right. Good luck!

[RhiannonWildfire]

Yes you will receive numerous replies. Regardless of the part of the task they address there will be some basics that will need to be part of your approach. The first step will be a partial disassembly, then a thorough cleaning, then removal of whatever finishes are used and there are quite a few different ones in use in the leather world. Your best chance at a single product approach to take care of everything will be to go to a shoe store and get a large portion of something called deglazing fluid or deglazer and use according to directions. (try it out first somewhere that you exposed in your take apart that does not show when reassembled) If this removes all finishes and strips out the oil from the surface then you will be ready to paint. Afterwhich you will first have to restore the oil the deglazer removed. There are some fine products that will not darken, I recommend something called Lexol Nf. Again try out first. Then a finish, then reassembly. You may, after all the good advice you will receive just decide to put this project in the "Too Hard" box and keep on yearning for a painted saddle. Unless! you can get some good help for the take apart-put back together part cause it really is harder than falling off of a log to get it right. Good luck!

Do you absolutely feel that i need to dissemble the saddle? Could i not paint it in portions and use blocks to lift the skirts, etc?

Thank you for the help!

[oltoot]

Absolutely, sorry but I'm positive that you wouldn't be happy with the results unless you did.

[RhiannonWildfire]

Hmm. My local artists store recommended textile paint; does anyone have an opinion whether textile paint would work as well as or better than acrylic paint? Also, do i need to paint a lighter base color on dark leather to get the colored paint to show?