Review Angelus Jet Black

[Boriqua]

Finished a few projects now with the Angelus Jet Black dye and thought I would comment on its pluses and minuses. I had been using Fiebings black pro dye for as long as I can remember. Tried Tandy's black water stain, tried USMC black but by and large .. Fiebings pro black since about '91. Put in an order for some different colors of Angelus with Angelus direct and I included a qt of "Jet Black"

The good

It is HEAVILY pigmented. It can easily withstand a 50% cut and still be BLACK

It is so heavily pigmented that the finished products even before resolene look like the Police gear I remember from back in the day and a bunch of the old military gear I get asked to repair from time to time. I mean ... its BLACK! I often wondered how some of that older gear got so black and assumed it was some type of acrylic spray finish and it may be but .. this is that kind of BLACK. I have given items multiple passes with Fiebings and I never got that really deep heavy satisfying black. Always a little gray for me which looked better after resolene or some other top coat but the Angelus is really that much more solid black even with one pass.

The first time I tried it I did what I do with Fiebings ..I used it straight from the bottle, I sprayed my item, then I went in with a dauber and finished with a light spray. It was WAY to much dye. It was a waste of money. You just dont need that much dye to get superior results. I just finished 2 items this morning and all I did was spray once and the items are wonderfully black.

The down side

Because it is so heavily pigmented it is actually difficult to clean out of my airbrush.  I keep a bottle of Denatured in a squirt condiment bottle at my work table and with fiebings I squirt some in the brush when I am done with a color, swirl it around and spray it out. One more pass with denatured and its completely clean. Not so with the Angelus. I squirt in Denatured and swirl it around and the black just sticks to the sides of the bowl. When I first used the angelus straight from the bottle I had to pull the brush apart. You need to cut this dye. Even then .. clean up is not as easy as with fiebings. Cool thing is its like getting 2 qts for the price of one?

Secondly because it is so heavily pigmented .. you will be buffing. Huffing and buffing because while you can buff it until your rag comes clean, unlike USMC, it requires effort and time. Many times when using fiebings even if I laid on heavy coats of dye, when it dried a couple of minutes of buffing and my rags were clean. Not so with the angelus. You will work.

Could be my imagination but I think the Angelus reducer works better than denatured at cutting but ??

 

My conclusion ... It is by far a superior looking end product using the Angelus. It really looks like what I always imagined black leather goods looking like, the kind of things i grew up seeing but was unable to achieve in my own work and I have been at this a good long time. I am a hobbyist who sells a few things so I am not mass producing and not in a giant rush. I get joy at improving what I offer and making cool looking stuff so the extra time needed to make this work is fine with me. It really is that much more beautiful. I cant imagine what it would look like on some of the upgraded leather some of you are using.

It is comparably priced on Ebay to a similar size of Fiebings. Not knocking fiebings .. been a great dye but if you happen to be on ebay and can spare about $7.50 pick up a small bottle of the Angelus jet black to experiment with. Try it straight and cut. Its BLACK!

Edited October 18, 2016 by Boriqua

[bikermutt07]

Thanks.

[TonyRV2]

Thanks for the tip.  I think I will order a bottle and check it out, but I'm afraid I'll like it.  I like easy cleanup too.  Ah...the things we suffer for our art.