How Are You Applying Dye On Edges?

[Spaceblues]

Are you painting spirit dye on with a brush? Using a dauber? A refillable pen?

Just curious because when I used a dauber it was difficult to keep a clean line and it crept down on the sides of the leather. Might just be I was using a good method and just need more practice and to be more careful. 

[Thor]

If I'm dying edges at all I'm using a damp high density sponge.

[terrymac]

A refillable felt pen sold by Lisa Sorrel.  She is a sponsor on this site.

Terry

[Troy I]

I use a wool dauber.

[NVLeatherWorx]

There is a neat little trick to using the wool daubers that has been around since the days of Al Stohlman and it works great.  Take a small wool dauber and light it on fire to burn off all of the loose fuzzy stuff.  Once you have burned that off make sure that you remove any residue from the remaining dauber head (which will be much more compact than before) by wiping it with a cloth.  Now you have a precision application tool that won't let the dye creep down the sides.

[Spaceblues]

Thank you all for the replies. The old Stohlman book I've got from the 70's showed the use of a felt dauber held with a clothespin and I hadn't seen/heard anyone doing this so I was curious. 

[Thor]

16 minutes ago, Spaceblues said:

Thank you all for the replies. The old Stohlman book I've got from the 70's showed the use of a felt dauber held with a clothespin and I hadn't seen/heard anyone doing this so I was curious. 

A friend of mine does that for edge paint, but not for dye.

[Red Cent]

I use the dauber, the one with a cotton ball on the end of a piece of wire. I do burn the fuzz off.

I do not dye a raw edge. The dye will be sucked in erratically.

If I am making a CC gun belt that is 1/4" thick, I take the glued (dried) together belt to the belt sander. I square the edges and make sure there is no smear from either piece of leather. Two defined pieces of leather. I bevel all edges with a #3 beveler on all sides. Then I hand sand the edge round leaving the defined line of the beveler on the belt side of the line. I use a little water on a rag to wet/dampen the edge of the leather and use a motorized burnisher. Usually this produces a glass like rounded edge colored as only a burnisher will do. Let it dry. I do not use edge dye, edge kote, edge enamel or other stuff. I simply dye the edge with a choice of regular dye.

I dye a path at the top of the curve  the full length and both sides of the belt and then I slow down and do the edges. Be careful and not overload the cotton ball. And, hold the object in such a manner if the dye does run, it runs down the edge. PS: Find a place to steady the arm/hand.

A semi loaded cotton ball will produce a better line than a barely wet one. With practice, you can create a crease in the cotton ball and use this to create an even line on the edge. Don't try to stretch coverage. Do a safe 8" or so AND use the beveler line as a fence. The dye will stop (within reason) at the fence and soak in. About an hour later burnish. I have found that different leathers will react....well, differently. Some react by dulling the dyed edge. Stop and grab the faithful, very smooth and well used dowel rod. Rub light and vigorously at first. With my belts, I lay the belt along the edge of table and hand burnish. You can create a very straight burnish line doing this. Turn as needed.

Hmmm, I wrote a novelette.

 

None of these have an acrylic coat on the edges. The third picture (sorry) is simply water and burnisher . Really. I do add a mixture of bees wax and paraffin to the edge and "burn" it into the leather with the motorized burnisher.

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Red Cent

[NVLeatherWorx]

And that is exactly how to do it; thank you Red Cent for the full tutorial on how to properly finish edges.  It is nice to know that there is someone else (besides me) who does it the old school way, you know, with water and all, and then finishes it all of with plain old dye instead of these newfangled shortcut processes.

[johnv474]

I use a horsehair inking brush, which looks like a toothbrush. It is intended for applying dressing/ink to the edges of dress heels.

I put a small amount on the brush and then I use the EDGE of the bristles, not the ends. That way, the dye doesn't flick. I usually set the piece I'm applying dye to on the work table and tilt forward and back so it's steady.

[TrooperChuck]

I've often been frustrated with various methods of dyeing edges.  Wool daubers, small brushes, sponge, etc.  Perhaps I'm just prone to goofing up, but none of these methods worked for me.  Recently I've been using an old jumbo sized felt tip Sharpie marker.  This marker was pretty much all used up and I was wondering if I could re-charge it with Feibing black oil dye.  I used a scratch awl to poke a hole in the top end of the barrel.  Being thin aluminum, it was easy to poke a hole, then enlarge it with a phillips screwdriver.  I then used an eye dropper to fill the barrel with black dye.  I put a piece of masking tape on the end of the barrel to close up the hole.

Now, when I need to dye edges I just grab the marker and make several passes over the edges.  It works quite well on smaller projects such as pocket knife sheaths and small belt pouches, but gets a bit tedious on longer edges such as gun belts.  The advantage of using the recycled marker pen is that I'm not getting any bleed-over or "oops" on my leather.  (This has also helped reduce the amount of swearing that is heard in my shop!)

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure the same thing could be done with dark brown dyes, if you could find a jumbo-sized brown marker pen.

When I'm not using the marker I store it point-down so dye doesn't leak out from under the taped hole in the top. 

After dying the edges I use a small sponge to apply water and then hand buff it with a scrap of canvass.  Sometimes, if I'm feeling ambitious, or if the edge just doesn't look as shiny as I want, I will wipe the edges with liquid glycerine soap and buff it again with the canvass.  Chris Andre, of Slickbald Leather, taught us the glycerine soap trick at his holster making class at the last Southwest Leather show in Arizona.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but it has worked okay for me.  (That is, until I come up with some other hair-brained idea of questionable practicality!)

[Red Cent]

The leather will make a lot of difference in the success of your burnishing. Realize that we talk as if we all buy the exact same leather from................

A piece of leather that is "conditioned" with NF oil or EVOO before you do anything else may not have good edge results. Saddle soap has a number of ingredients depending on the recipe you are viewing.  Some or all off the following: lanolin, Castile, NF oil, hand soap, flake lye, and gum turpentine.

Pick up a small piece of evenly cut veg tanned leather, preferably 8-9 ounce. With a damp rag, BARELY wet the edge. About six inches long or so. Buff or machine burnish. You should get a glass smooth edge in about 10 seconds. When you get the edge damp, there is a small window when the leather will re-act to the heat of the burnishing. Dampen three to four feet of leather and you will not have the same result the full length. If you machine burnish you may get away with it.

This slick edge is the ticket to get an even dye application. And the dye (alcohol) will make the edge dry and may crack. I use a big dowel rod to burnish immediately after I dye. I don't let it dry. This will show all the problems with your edge.  This will smooth the leather more even if it is dry, it will be smooth. If it is too dry, then rub on a glycerin bar lightly. No water. The glycerin will provide moisture and really slick the edge. A machine burnisher may not make it shiny. Do not despair. This is probably the leather. After you finish, the best thing in any case is to get a piece of towel and buff the edges.

Some leather will crack at this point if you bend it. Use a small amount of water at the bend before you bend and lightly apply more glycerin and get out the old dowel rod.

The last application is a 50/50 of beeswax and paraffin. Machined burnished.

 

You don't want to know how much time I put into my edges.

 

[OLDNSLOW]

Red, you mention that you use a number 3 edge beveler, what I have noticed is that not all bevelers are the same even from the same seller.  Case in point is the new style from Tandy is different from the wood handle style beveler that they sell, so my question is which type are you using?  Or would it make much difference between types?  As a side note the number 3 from Tandy with a rubber type handle is much larger than the wood handle type, so I was wondering if it makes much difference.  I haven't had any caffeeeen yet so not sure I made any sense.