Any way to pull dye OUT of leather?

[fredk]

10 minutes ago, wizard of tragacanth said:

Do you thin it first?

I thin regular Fiebings acrylic dye with meths & water for spraying

[darkmatter35]

I use an air brush with a .5mm needle which is not as finicky about the paint consistency as a gun with a smaller tip needle. I do not thin Pro Oil Dye. Make sure you run the dye through a filter to remove any large chunks in the dye bottle. That's all that's to it.

John

[Toddo]

On 5/29/2019 at 11:30 PM, TargetRockLeather said:

Yep, that's the "effect" I was talking about. This is what mine looks like:

Nice looking sheath. I like the dye effect around the edges!

I went ahead and ordered a new piece of leather to make a new sheath so I experimented with the old sheath. I soaked it in 50/50 bleach and water for around 5 minutes or so. It definitely pulled dye out of the leather as the solution was full of dye after 5  minutes. It turned out a splotchy mess like yours did with denatured alcohol.

It looks like it was regurgitated by a fish then washed up on the beach

It's extremely dry now and practically brittle. It feels like if you tried to bend it, it would like actually break. The bleach totally dried the leather out to the max. It needs to be reconditioned. I think I'll go ahead and make a sheath out of it for one of my old lock blade knives.

[Toddo]

On 5/30/2019 at 1:42 AM, wizard of tragacanth said:

I always used to think that I should strive for uniformity of color... makes it look more "professional" or "store bought".  But, hey, it is hand made!  I now think that the non-uniformity gives the piece more dimension.  

Of course, this would vary depending on the type of project, one may call for uniformity, another, not.

I totally agree.

[Toddo]

On 5/28/2019 at 11:19 PM, Hildebrand said:

Be aware that the piece of leather you are looking at on eBay may or may not die the same as your existing shoulder.  It's tough to match die on different pieces of leather.

Todd

That did cross my mind. The knife sheath is a small piece of the bag as a whole and will be sewn into the interior of the bag so a slight color variation on that piece will not be to critical in this instance.

[Toddo]

17 hours ago, darkmatter35 said:

If you plan on doing this for a while try airbrushing the Fiebings oil dye. I've had nice results. 

John 

 

I may try that one some time when I get more completed projects under my belt and want to try for something more refined looking.

[Rockoboy]

On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 2:16 PM, Toddo said:

It's extremely dry now and practically brittle.

I have never tried bleach on leather, but I have noticed after using denatured alcohol (methylated spirits), a coat of neatsfoot oil can help put some of the oils back into the leather and increase flexibility. Don't go overboard with the NFO or you could end up with a soggy mess that will not be any good for anything.

[TargetRockLeather]

8 hours ago, Rockoboy said:

I have never tried bleach on leather, but I have noticed after using denatured alcohol (methylated spirits), a coat of neatsfoot oil can help put some of the oils back into the leather and increase flexibility. Don't go overboard with the NFO or you could end up with a soggy mess that will not be any good for anything.

I never tried bleach either, but my thought was that bleach might damage the leather,  not just dry it out. Have you ever seen bleach used to clean something that was stitched with cotton thread? The thread can literally disintegrate. Happened to me on some vinyl boat seats. The seats came out nice and clean, then eventually fell apart. I'm wondering if leather might react similarly since it is essentially a natural fiber. Even if the NFO makes it soft again, I'm not sure if it would be structurally intact.

Having said that, you're absolutely right; neatsfoot oil is the best way that I know of to rejuvenate stiff/dried out leather.

[Toddo]

Just for an update. So I got the piece of leather from Ebay to make the new sheath and the Ebay piece looked white compared to my original single shoulder leather. I went ahead and made the sheath outta the new white looking leather thinking that now this one is gonna turn out lighter than the side panel pieces because of how white the leather looked. So I surfaced sponged the dye on front and back (because the back side of the flap will be seen when opened) with the fiebings pro dye. And guess what. It came out not lighter than the other sheath I totally submersed in dye, but just as dark some how. Go figure. I only dyed the front side of the side panel pieces and left the backs undyed. I guess dyeing the back side of leather makes the front side look darker somehow? I don't really get it. After applying antique on the new piece it even actually looks a bit darker than the first sheath that I was so worried about being to dark. I coulda just gone ahead with the first sheath. Phsst. Lessons learned.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Toddo

[TargetRockLeather]

I think the darker color has more to do with the texture of the leather than the shade/color of it before you dye it. The more porous the leather, the more dye it will absorb. The texture and smoothness/porosity will vary from one piece of leather to the next. It's not something you can control. That's why you should try to cut all of the pieces from the same piece of leather. I don't think dying the back made the front darker unless you completely saturated the back.

You mentioned applying antique. I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish or how it turned out. If the project came out too dark then perhaps you could have applied a "resist" layer before the antiquing step. The resist will allow the antiquing to darken some of the details (tooling cuts, stamping etc) without darkening the overall project.