Buffing, Buffing, buffing??

[immiketoo]

Certain colors are worse than others.  Browns and red should be fine.  Blue/green/purple are the worst with USMC black being the king of rub off.  I use sheep fleece but in bigger sizes to facilitate buffing.  As mentioned earlier, letting it dry completely helps tons.

 

[Tugadude]

Try waiting 24 hours before buffing.  Did you say you are buffing for 20 minutes, or are waiting to buff 20 minutes?  I've never buffed anything for more than a minute or so and I've never had issues like you describe.  I've tried applying Neatsfoot oil first and then dye, dye straight over clean leather and not having issues.  I typically use Fiebings Pro oil dye.

[bikermutt07]

7 hours ago, Gabriel Rasa said:

In my experience, Angelus dyes behave about identically to Fiebings spirit dyes -- they just have the advantage of being legal in California, where you can't get Fiebings without making a road trip to Reno. XD

Sounds like another reason to add to the 90 reasons to not live there.

[charon]

11 hours ago, Tugadude said:

I typically use Fiebings Pro oil dye

Thats the trick. Had the same issue with Fiebings Leather dye, you rub like your life depends on it but it wont stop coming off. Once died a front of a bag and covered a whole t-shirt in dye excess. What I now do is this:

use Fiebings Professional Oil Dye: you can dilute them with denat. alcohol the same as the leather dye. The name is confusing, its also alcohol based, the color particles are made from petroleum thus the name oil dye

wait at least 12 hours

buff once

I oil my pieces after I dyed them if necessary, let the oil sink in until dry to the touch, buff them again, next to nothing coming off now. The oil evens out the color too, thats a nice side effect

finish it and give it a final rub after a few hours of drying.

Upon delivery I apply some leather treatment to make it smooth and shiny again. Works every time now

[Tugadude]

4 hours ago, charon said:

Thats the trick. Had the same issue with Fiebings Leather dye, you rub like your life depends on it but it wont stop coming off. Once died a front of a bag and covered a whole t-shirt in dye excess. What I now do is this:

use Fiebings Professional Oil Dye: you can dilute them with denat. alcohol the same as the leather dye. The name is confusing, its also alcohol based, the color particles are made from petroleum thus the name oil dye

wait at least 12 hours

buff once

I oil my pieces after I dyed them if necessary, let the oil sink in until dry to the touch, buff them again, next to nothing coming off now. The oil evens out the color too, thats a nice side effect

finish it and give it a final rub after a few hours of drying.

Upon delivery I apply some leather treatment to make it smooth and shiny again. Works every time now

I've had good luck with carnauba creme as a finish on many items.  For things that I want to shine, I use Supersheen from Tandy.  It provides a nice, durable finish.  There have been a couple of items I experimented on and used a neutral shoe wax and actually found it had good results.

[chrisash]

Buffing excessively will remove the top surface on most things as you are just rubbing it away

All you want to do after giving it about 24 hours to fully dry is buff it for a couple of minutes totake of any loose dye that may be sitting on the surface to leave a smooth surface for finish

[BDAZ]

Kind of an odd final step but I use good old shoe polish a dauber and a brush for a super finish. I just finished a product died USMC Black and it looks spectacular. Took off the EXCESS by buffing and then a coat of Aussie and then dry/absorb time, spray wax and the shoe shine.

This was one of a dozen pieces made from drum dyed but I screwed up the edging on one in natural and had to dye the whole thing black. Looks the best of the batch.

 

Bob

[TheCyberwolfe]

Interesting that some of you apply neatsfoot after dying, I was taught to oil it, wait 24 hours, then dye (and use Fiebing's Pro-not-called-Oil-anymore Dye). I rub it down with an old T-shirt for a couple minutes before applying the finish coat. Oiling it first helps draw the pigment deeper into the leather.

[charon]

I guess it depends on what you aim for. I agree with you, when you want your dye to soak deeper into the leather it is useful to oil it before dyeing. My purpose is usually to re-smooth the leather after it was dyed, which makes it stiff (and curly when using thin leathers). I found that a good coat of neatsfoot oil smoothens the leather and partly reverts the curling of thin leather. Sometimes I even oil right after dyeing thus preventing or lessening the stiffing/curling of the leather, especially when dyeing both sides of the (thin) leather. Didn't achieve the same result when oiling it before dyeing but maybe I was doing it wrong...

Just my personal experience, but if someone has a better approach I'm willing to give it a shot.

[Boriqua]

Angelus dyes are so juicy because they have a ton of pigment. I absolutely love their jet black but unless you cut it some you will be buffing until your eyes bleed. Even their cordovan requires a bit more work than Fiebings cordovan but I like the color better. I have no problem with Mahogany and brandy though so its color specific and not all angelus dyes are a pain.

Here is my 2 cents and worth about that much

Leave your piece alone after dying at very least overnight.

I did not have the same success cutting Angelus dye with denatured that I did with fiebings so for me it was worth it to buy the Angelus reducer for the colors that need it like the jet black.

Use a throw away rag as your first couple of passes. I keep all my old tee shirts and such and have a container of them in the shed. Soil one up toss it and then use another. My wonderful wife cuts them into smaller pieces for me.

You can final step with the sheep's wool and tandy sells a fair sized bag of remnants for cheap. I still have some from the last bag I bought months ago.

https://www.tandyleather.com/en/product/sheepwool-remnants-4-oz