Antique No Antique

[Pablo27]

 

I tried an experiment using Feibings paste Antique and various different types of resist.  For some reason the antiquing didn't work on any of them?

On this piece I used Mop-N-Glo top half 1 coat, bottom half 2 coats, Sheridan Brown Feibings paste.

On this piece I used Super Sheen two coats  Medium Brown paste.

On this piece I used RTC on the top portion 2 coats, and 50% Reslone 2 coats on the bottom.

I really don't see any antique to speak of on any of the pieces.  Any and all thoughts welcome please.

[NVLeatherWorx]

First, using things like Mop n Glo, which aren't intended to be used for such things as leather finishing, won't yield anything positive for you; this is why there are specific products that have been developed for leather work.  You have to remember that Super Sheen is a water based product so it won't hold up as well to things that have a spirit based formula; just simple chemistry there.  Although Resolene will give you some resist factor it must be applied FULL STRENGTH and not in any other watered down blend.  If you want to get the most positive results from your resisting attempts you need to consider going to one of the lacquers, such as Clear-Lac, which is available from Springfield Leather.  This is the same product that we all once knew as Neat-Lac (for those of us who have been working with leather that long) and it has always produced the best and most consistent results.

Another tip would be that to get the most eye popping results from a resist you might want to consider using your darker colors (Sheridan Brown is not one of them, it barely even adds much color as it is) and always make sure that everything has set and cured no less than 8 hours before moving on to the next step (apply resist, set aside and wait for it to properly set, apply Antique).

I have been doing this for over 40 years and have never had a resist attempt not work for me so it is in the product mix and the process that you find the failures.  There will be some chime in about being a purist but the reality is that this trade and craft requires a bit of traditional purity to get the results that you are looking for and to not follow the written flow of such activities (and this is all written down in many places by many workers and masters) will result in a failed attempt and wasted time and materials.

[billybopp]

One of the things that I see that may be contributing to the problem is that your tooling isn't very deep.  That in itself isn't a problem, but you have to remember - Antique is meant to "settle into" the impressions that your tooling makes, and then excess removed.  If you use something like sheeps wool to apply it pretty darn heavily that will help work that antique down deep - but is you use the same sort of sheeps wool to remove it, it will also go pretty deep and likely take off too much.  I often use good ol' paper towels folded flat to remove the excess.  Deeper tooling can help too, by giving more depth to hold onto that antique - Flip side of that is TOO deep and you can't get the right amount back out.  

Hope that helps

Bill

[Pablo27]

Thank you for the quick reply and the sharing of your experience, I totally agree with you on the tried and true and the purity of the trade.  My point here actually was that they all worked too well.  Doesn't look to me like there was any antique applied at all?  I realize that Super Sheen is a water based product, I expected the paste to really penetrate it.  I Did use Clear lac on another piece that I didn't show and the result was the same.  I was just trying to compare the different resist's (?) to see which combination I liked, but, I just didn't get any antique look at all with any of the combinations?  So I'm not sure where to go from here, I will keep trying though.  Thanks again for help.

[NVLeatherWorx]

1 hour ago, Pablo27 said:

Thank you for the quick reply and the sharing of your experience, I totally agree with you on the tried and true and the purity of the trade.  My point here actually was that they all worked too well.  Doesn't look to me like there was any antique applied at all?  I realize that Super Sheen is a water based product, I expected the paste to really penetrate it.  I Did use Clear lac on another piece that I didn't show and the result was the same.  I was just trying to compare the different resist's (?) to see which combination I liked, but, I just didn't get any antique look at all with any of the combinations?  So I'm not sure where to go from here, I will keep trying though.  Thanks again for help.

The object of applying a resist is not to resist the whole thing but to only resist specific detail areas that you want to stand out from the rest.  It is a waste of time to resist an entire piece of leather as there is no color variance to the finished look.  If you want an entire piece lighter just use a lighter color and continue to apply overall.  In the image that you provided, the intended resist section should have been the stamped area with the remaining "untouched" section being left to absorb the whole depth of color (you could also reverse that by resisting the unstamped area and not the stamped area to get a different tonal look).

[Basically Bob]

You might find this video by Don Gonzales  helpful

 

 

[Pablo27]

Sorry for the delay in responding as priorities shifted and just now getting back to the post.  Thank everyone for the time and advice, however I am afraid that maybe what I said isn't what I meant?  I have watched the video by Don and many others, and my intent was not to antique the entire piece.  What I was attempting to do was to see the result of antiquing trying different types of resist and what the effect would be with each, so that I might have a better idea how each one worked(or didn't).  My reason for posting was that I did not really see any coloration (antique) in any of them?  I was hoping to get some feedback as to why there wasn't any real color in any of them, much less any variance among them.  Sorry if I wasn't clear about that, and still don't know what I am not doing right?