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Hi Everyone,

I am having a bit of a problem with finishing a particular piece. After i had all of my tooling finished i applied a couple coats of Fiebings Leather Balm and let it set for 24 hours. I chose to use Eco-Flo Saddle Tan Gel Antique for this photo album. It seems to me that it's a bit too "yellow". I have thinned it out as much as it would take off with water and polishing it with a rag. Also i am having a hard time figuring out what to do with my background. I wanted to keep everything as light as possible, but not sure that's much of an option anymore. If anyone could provide some tips or opinions on what i could do to improve the overall appearance of this piece, i would be in debt to you!! Too many hours of tooling to be unsatisfied with it. Thanks for taking the time to read.

KB Custom

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Posted

I've never tried using Leather Balm as a resist for antiqing before. I'm surprised how well it did work. I don't think there is much you could do to lighten the overall yellowing the piece has (though I personally like the color) but you might be able to help the background areas. I would try stripping the leather balm from the background areas with denatured alcohol. The darkening in the background areas MIGHT come off with the balm / wax coating but I doubt it. IF you can clean the balm off (and it will take a lot of work) you could then dye or color the background more to your liking, and then reapply the balm. Reapplying the balm might mess up the antique on your tooled work, so be careful.

I've done that on occasion when my resist didn't resist well and I got dark spots from antiquing. It's a lot of work and it doesn't always improve things.

There are always possibilities....

Bob Blea

C and B Leathercrafts

Fort Collins, CO

Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CandBLeather?ref=si_shop

Instagram @bobbleacandbleather

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Posted

I think it looks nice the way it is. Trying to take off the Leather Balm could end up with throwing your album in the garbage. I would keep it as is and mark it as a lesson learned. JMO

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Posted

What are your recommendations for background coloring on this particular piece. Right now as it stands, the album has an orange/red tint to the background, around the name on the spine. I put a darker brown to see what it would look like that way as well. Any recommendations?

  • Contributing Member
Posted

When I have dyed the background on a piece I usually go with a dark brown Fiebings spirit based for a lot of contrast. Since you were looking for a lighter look overall, maybe look at what Fiebings or Tandy makes in a lighter brown? If the antique has reached the leather though you can only cover it with a darker dye. You can modify the shade of orange/red with a light wash or overwhelm it with a darker color, but with dyes the colors always add to each other.

Another thought (if you can get the Leather Balm off well enough) is that Acrylic colors would actually be able to cover the orange/red tint and hide it. With acrylic you could mix a base color that matches the leather color and completely block out the coloring in the background. Then you could paint over with other colors and make it whatever you want. The problem is that over time the leather will naturally darken with exposure to light, but the acrylic covered areas would not. You could end up with something very different than what you intended with just a little exposure to sunlight.

There are always possibilities....

Bob Blea

C and B Leathercrafts

Fort Collins, CO

Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CandBLeather?ref=si_shop

Instagram @bobbleacandbleather

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Posted (edited)

I like it the way it is as well. That is some really fine, crisp workmanship!

I use LEATHER BALM as a finish on most of my work and favor it. You might contact Fiebings and ask if their Leather Deglazer will remove the BALM.

Edited by MikeS
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Posted

I think im going to have to be happy with the overall look at this point and not try to remove the base layers of balm i applied. going forward, i just need to figure out what looks the best for the background and my thoughts are leaning towards the darker color like in the picture. Does that look good ( around the name area), if so, ill just need to darken the rest of the background areas to match. If it doesn't look great, i am looking for other options. It doesn't have to be "light" in color, i only wanted the surface color to be lighter, which it is fairly light i suppose.

  • Contributing Member
Posted

I like the way it looks except for the darker areas in the background around the letters and a bit of the floral carving. I think the coloring of the tooling and untooled areas looks good. I would probably just selectively add antique to the background areas to try to get them more uniform and darker. If you can do that I think you'll have an excellent piece.

There are always possibilities....

Bob Blea

C and B Leathercrafts

Fort Collins, CO

Visit my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CandBLeather?ref=si_shop

Instagram @bobbleacandbleather

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Posted

I will give it a try tonight and report back what it looks like when i have darkened the rest of the background areas. thanks for the input, i greatly appreciate it!

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