Harbor Freight Airbrush

[Art]

The air world is all over the place, at least they haven't went metric.

Art

[Colt W Knight]

I actually used the airbrush on a real project. The airbrush is so much cleaner and easier to use. Plus, It uses a lot less dye. I think these bursted edges came out well

[Colt W Knight]

Cool, thanks for that Colt.

If you still have the stuff out, put a second coat on the 4:1 halfway up, let it dry a little and put a third coat 1/3 the way up.

Art

Here ya go

Bottom is full strength light brown fiebings dye applied with a dauber

the rest is 3 parts alcohol and 1 part light brown fiebings dye.

When the coats were wet, you could really tell the difference between 1, 2, 3, and 4 coats applied with the airbrush. As the dye dried and absorbed into the leather, the difference between 2 and 3 coats was nearly unnoticeable.

[Art]

Great Colt,

Two and Three are close, but then four comes on strong.

Thanks for the demo,

Art

[Dan28]

Picked one of these up this past Saturday, as I want to do some sunburst type dye jobs. I tried doing that once before by hand with Black and Royle Blue. I thinned out the black and used a big hunk of wool that I rubbed on cardboard after soaking up some black dye to get rid of the bulk of the pigment. Then lightly brushed it from the edge of my piece to the inside try and get a gradient affect. It kind of worked, but took a while. I think the air brush will do it quite easily, I'll know in a few days. So far all I've used it for was a black belt just to test it out. I probably did about a little more than 50% alcohol to a little less than 50% Fiebings black dye. I'm sure I would have used a lot more dye if applying with a dauber.

I didn't use a respirator when I applied it, but I think I am in the future. Got a little worried that I may have breathed in some of the dye, even though I had an exhaust running.

[shtoink]

I didn't use a respirator when I applied it, but I think I am in the future. Got a little worried that I may have breathed in some of the dye, even though I had an exhaust running.

The use of a respirator or using it outside and downwind should be at the top of your list and cannot be stressed enough. You certainly don't want to be breathing any of the nasty chemicals in the dyes and solvents, and the risk of that becomes so much higher when you turn them into a fine mist with an airbrush. Dizziness and headaches are likely to be the nicest of things that can happen.

[pnj]

I want in on this!

What I think I'm reading here is, you must thin down the dye for it to absorb correctly into the leather? I've done a few airbrushed leather projects and the dye seemed to sit on top rather than sink into the leather.

What is the technique to do the sunburst? I can do it with paper and paint, using my airbrush but can't get the same results on leather.

Thanks!

[Colt W Knight]

I haven't had any trouble spraying full strength Fiebings leather dye.

I will try to do a video and show how I do a sunburst finish.

[pnj]

I think my past issues I had were from using paint, not dye.

I did a basic sunburst on a quick wallet then played around with some masking and did the light bulb thingy.

How do y'all get the dye from the bottle into your airbrush? I think I need some eye droppers.

This is fun!

Edited September 7, 2015 by pnj

[Colt W Knight]

I use a syringe and a 2 inch needle. Best way I have found so far.