Strippng Sealants

[cinatas]

I have a vegetble tanned leather motorcycle seat that I made a few years ago. It was died with water based fiebings die medium brown, sealed with TanKote and waxed with fiebings aussie leather coditioner. I recently decided to make the seat black. I figured just using acetone and or using #12 fiebings stripper deglazer would remove all of the sealants and allow me to die the seat black using oil based fiebings black. So far not so much! The sealants havent been removed fully, and my application of the black has resulted in brown/black spoltchyness. Any ideas on getting this thing black? Switch to water based black dye? Better stripper ideas? Soaking in black dye? Or should I give up?

[Bob Blea]

Hello cinatas,

I have a little experience like this. Every once in a while I need to strip off the resist I use when antiquing (because of a mistake in not getting even coverage with the resist) and I use denatured alcohol. My resist in Wyosheen which is a lacquer and is different from what you are using in that it mostly sits on top of the leather. I think your Tan Kote penetrates more. I have to use several applications of the alcohol and quite a bit of patience to get my resist layer off, and I have to be careful not to damage the grain surface of the leather but rubbing too hard. In your case I think it will take a couple of tries too, so you might try stripping it again. Also, you might be able to use plain water as a test for how well you have stripped the surface. After stripping let the seat dry, then try brushing it with a damp sponge and watching how well the seat absorbs the water. If it doesn't seem to be discoloring / penetrating that will tell you the dye will have trouble penetrating too. This might be hard to tell since the seat is mostly black now, but it might give you an idea if your stripping is having any effect.

If the dye did penetrate somewhat into all areas, just reapplying might even things out but it would still be hard to get an even tone. Could maybe get it pretty close. It's certainly worth a try rather than tossing it.

Not sure if this will help, but it's all I can add to the subject.

[Troy Burch]

I redye boots alot. My method is to use deglazer to get all the finishes off then use pro oil dye to redye. Don't use a damp rag and scrup, use a wet rag and wipe, let the leather dry and do it again. You may even have to do it a third time(very seldom). You should be able to tell when the waxes and stuff are off because the leather will darken when it gets wet. Every pair I've done this way whether new or used have come out looking like new. Most of the time I'm redyeing black or brown, like I mentioned above use pro oil dye it works much better.