Newbie Question - Antiquing

[cmarx26]

For starters, I just wanted to say I have found this forum to be very helpful in the few projects that I have done. I have made a couple simple holsters and one belt. I am sorry to be asking such a newbie question but have not found what I am looking for yet. I think I am ready to try antiquing my newest project, a belt. I know my lingo is probably way off, but hope you might be able to understand my question. My question is can I just die the tooled portion and border of the belt and leave the background undyied. Then when I put my resistant on, just cover the tooled portion and border and leave the background resistant free. My thinking is the antique will absorb into the cracks and all portions not resisted. Will this give me a background that is darker, assuming I use a dark antique? I have trouble keeping my darker background dye off my raised edges when I attempt to dye with two different color dyes. Part of me thinks this is the normal way of doing it and part of me thinks I am just trying to cut corners. Your help will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[JLSleather]

Well, i gotta ask. How do you plan to get the "resist" on there?

[cmarx26]

I was thinking with a brush.

[terrymac]

A brush will work fine. The question, what are you using for a resist? I antique all of my work, but only use Clearlac as the resist, and Findings antique paste. I tried the Ecoflo stuff and threw it all away. Same with the resist which I was told would work as well as the Clearlac. I use a pointed brush on the tooling leaving the background alone, or alot of times dying the background, and using the antique to highlight the cuts and bookmarks as you are wanting to do. Look at some of Hidepounder' work, and you will see what I am talking about. Hope this helps,

Terry

[JLSleather]

So, you use a brush, to brush something on the leather - but not on the background and not in these "cuts'. Something not sinking i here - Couldn't you do the same thing with the dye?

[terrymac]

You can do the same with dying the background, it just a matter of how much contrast you want between the various elements. I recently finished a belt where I dyed everything except the floral elements, applied Clearlac over everything, and then applied antique over the whole thing. Even if you apply the resist with a brush, the cuts will still be highlighted by the antique. One thing I will advise is to use wool when removing the excess, or you will never get it all and will end up with the mud puddle look.

Terry