Coloring Embossed Leather

[Toga1116]

Hello--there was a post regarding this back in 2010, but I've found no answers.  I'm wondering if there's an embossing machine out there that also prints the colors you need onto the leather as it embosses?  I make leather patches and hand painting takes way too long and is too inaccurate for my liking.  I have to use the smallest brush I can find and that isn't small enough!  I thought of using those acrylic ultra-fine paint pens, but I don't think those will work either.  There are some patch makers out there that have embossed colored patches that look impossibly perfect to be done by hand.  Am I unawares of some type of machine that both embosses and colors at the same time?  My local leatherworking shop has no idea how they're made.  Picture is example of what I'm trying to achieve...Thanks!

[Rockoboy]

Not my field of expertise, what about embossing then screen-printing? Obviously that would need to be screen-printed one colour at a time.

[Toga1116]

Not sure about screen printing.  How would it get into the grooves?  That's way out of my realm of knowledge.

 

[Rockoboy]

Hmmm ... I guess you're right. Screen printing would not work, because the paint, if it was thin enough, would run along the grooves.

Unless you screen print the colours 1st, let them dry then emboss. That would work if you had a system of where to place the object so that the embossing is exactly aligned to the coloured sample.

A simple pin register on the screen-printing station with an identical pin register on the embossing station. Again, I am not an expert in this field, just spitballing here.

[JLSleather]

Other way around. Printed, THEN embossed.  Simple stuff IF the right equipment.  In the "old days" (25-30 years back) that's how multi-color pages were made, maybe in some garage somewhere it still is ... print one color, then line it up ("register" it) and print next color ....

 

[badluckleather]

Fill these with your paint for precision application. Lifesavers