Black dye

[bermudahwin]

Always learning... now need to Google vinegaroon, never heard of it

[bermudahwin]

7 minutes ago, hwinbermuda said:

Always learning... now need to Google vinegaroon, never heard of it

Apparently it's a scorpion...

Or a traditional coloring made with iron and vinegar, I'm off to play. 

[Matt S]

5 hours ago, hwinbermuda said:

Apparently it's a scorpion...

Or a traditional coloring made with iron and vinegar, I'm off to play. 

Strictly speaking vinegaroon is a striker, rather than dye. By dissolving iron/steel in vinegar (acetic acid) you make ferric acetate, which reacts with the tannic acid in veg-tanned leather to precipitate ferric tannate in the leather. This is a blue-grey-black insoluble lake which is excellent as it doesn't wash out. Same principle has been used to darken oak for a very long time.

If you don't want to mess about with witches' brews ferric acetate is available from chemical supply places but I found that ferric sulfate does much the same job and the powder is readily available in bulk from garden centres. Apparently the tablets that are taken for anaemia are the same stuff too, so if you wanted to try a small amount of it you could crush up a slack handful of them. Will Ghormley (who makes historically accurate Western leather) uses a big barrel of rusty water to produce a similar but slightly less intense colouring.

I did some research a few years ago on different strikers. Intention was to be able to colour russet leather without the mess of dyes (I'm a clumsy sort and at that time was leathering from a carpeted bedroom). There's not a great deal of literature available to people who aren't tanning industry specialists and what I found is that strikers are, generally speaking, rather lacklustre on their own and best used as the tanneries do -- in conjunction with the more usual dyestuffs, which defeats the purposes for which I was researching them. Iron (from whatever source) gives the best effect on its own of all the strikers I tried.

In the end I started buying prefinished leather, which is far more time-effective and will always have a better finish than I can achieve. However I have used it to edge-colour bridle leather that wasn't struck through. What I liked was that I could start burnishing straight away, without waiting for the dye to dry.

[bermudahwin]

Have just bought steel wool, and have loads of vinegar, so going to give it a go, and see.

[Eddie Q]

10 minutes ago, hwinbermuda said:

Have just bought steel wool, and have loads of vinegar, so going to give it a go, and see.

Just make sure to soak in acetone or brake cleaner for a bit to remove any oil residue from it, have fun  !!

 I also love experimenting with this sort of thing

[SickMick]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:55 PM, hwinbermuda said:

Apparently it's a scorpion...

Or a traditional coloring made with iron and vinegar, I'm off to play. 

LOL..... not really a scorpion.....but sort of resembles one as they speed around. You know when you see one because you're running the other way...and you are scarred for life. Definitely one of those "OMG WHAT THE #@#$% IS THAT?" experiences. Sorry I'm no help actually covering the topic.....

[Samalan]

Roon is good but not really black ,this is a gun belt i did in roon it's a lot of time and work to get this stuff made and to work right ,but that's just my opinion .

[bermudahwin]

 

@Samalan

That belt looks cool, and looks black on my screen. Thank you for posting so I can see it used.

Steel and vinegar in a jar as I write.

H

[Samalan]

In the sun it's a very dark olive. Yes use the finest steel wool you can find, ad a whole ream of it to one  gallon white vinegar let it sit for three weeks or so , it is nasty stuff, have fun.         

15 hours ago, hwinbermuda said:

 

@Samalan

That belt looks cool, and looks black on my screen. Thank you for posting so I can see it used.

Steel and vinegar in a jar as I write.

H

 

[rsgonner]

Fortunately, I live in Milwaukee and can visit the Fiebings factory.  On the advice of the technician, I used the black Low VOC.  Had always used Pro Dye, but he said in black, the Low VOC was  deeper and very dense.  He was definitely right!  This was dyed with a dauber (not dipped), 2 coats, black resolene diluted 50/50 with water and a final buff with Aussie.  Almost no take off with the buff.  I am convinced!