Seeking Leather Dying Advice

[pcarlson1115]

I am attempting to dye this yellow lambskin bag brown.

I have dyed deer and cow hide leather in the past with no problems and figured changing the color of the bag would be easy enough. However, after attempting to dye the front of this bag I realized I was very wrong

So I figured I should seek some guidance before continuing any further.

Here is what I have done so far:

The bag came with a small leather patch so I tested out my methods on this first. It worked quite well. I coated the patch in some Tarrago leather preparer and then used a wool dauber to apply a single coat of Fiebing’s alcohol based leather dye.

[Dyed swatch left, undyed right]

The leather test swatch’s results were to my satisfaction so I proceeded to coat the bag in the preparer and then applied a single coat of Fiebing’s alcohol based leather dye to the front. Unfortunately, the front of the bag turned out nothing like the test swatch.The sealer on the bag appeared to still be intact and most of the dye sat pathetically on the surface while the remainder, that had soaked in, turned the leather a uneven dirty orange.

[The bag doesn't look half bad in this photo but I assure you in real life its terrible. I put the test swatch off to the left side for comparison.]

I let the bag dry and then coated the leather with acetone to try to remove all existing sealer from the surface. I didn’t have any deglazer on hand but heard acetone is good for tough jobs anyways. I don’t know if that was a mistake but after a few coats all of the existing sealer appears to be removed and the bag is almost completely matte in color.

The bag came with a leather encased mirror and a strap so I applied acetone to those as well. I decided to dye the mirror first, as I never use it, before again attempting to dye the body of the bag. I wet the leather and applied one coat of dye with a wool dauber. I think the dye took better to the leather on mirror after treating in acetone.

I want to now precede to the strap and bag but am I afraid since the front turned out so badly the first time around. What do you guys think? Should I proceed with this method or is there anything else you would recommend I do before attempting to dye the body of the bag?

[Halitech]

if it was a prefinished bag, it would have a sealer on it and chances are, it's not veg tanned leather. You would need to at least strip off all the sealer they put on it from the factory and even then, it probably won't take the new dye the way you expect it to

[pcarlson1115]

Thank you very much for your help. I'm hoping the acetone removed the remaining sealer and it will take the dye a little better the second time around. I'm going to try to dye the bag again today. My fingers are crossed I don't end up ruining it.