quickly aging veg tan leather color?

[DavidRM]

I am making new handles for a bag/purse made from vegetable tanned leather.  The bag is probably as old as me - so I will clean it and oil it.   New veg tan handles will be much brighter than the older leather bag.    The lady I am doing this for will be happy just to have handles that function again.   However, I would like the handles to match a little bit better.     I suppose I could attempt to dye it slightly darker to match - but that could take a long time to figure out the right thinning for the dye I currently have.  Is there a particular dye someone could recommend or any trick to getting veg tan leather to naturally darken quicker? 

Thanks for any ideas

[garypl]

I think airbrushing will allow you to darken it without overdoing it.  Test on a sample piece and stop when it’s slightly lighter than you want it, then oil it and see how it looks after the oil dries overnight.  You can always give it another layer with the airbrush and repeat until it’s the color you want.

Gary

[Lobo]

You can set the pieces out in direct sunlight for a couple of days, perhaps a window sill that catches the sun most of the day. That will result in considerable darkening of the leather. Light and controlled applications of neatsfoot oil will darken the leather, as well as provide some flexibility in use. A combination of the two techniques should provide several shades of color difference.

[battlemunky]

Yeah, like @Lobo said, sunlight will darken it. Just for S&Gs you could drop a piece of scrap somewhere outside where you can keep an eye on it to see if it'll yield what you are looking for.

[jmball]

I use a UV lamp to sun tan leather for a couple of days and then use neatsfoot oil before I apply finish.

Before

 

[jmball]

After

[robs456]

On 10/19/2019 at 3:18 AM, DavidRM said:

Is there a particular dye someone could recommend or any trick to getting veg tan leather to naturally darken quicker? 

Depending on the effect you want you may find this useful 

 

[MrLentz]

Depending on how aged you need it to look, I found one method to work quite well if you want that really old worn out look. Boil a pot of water and pour it over the leather you need aged. Careful where you pour though! It's unorthodox I know - but it'll shrivel and crack the edges a bit for a much more aged look. I have also dipped leather in boiling water, but that is a bit extreme and basically destroys the leather with cracking.

[Tugadude]

Sunlight.  I had a Yeti sleeve I made and put it on my counter by a window.  Within one day it had darkened similarly to the holster above.  It was un-dyed veg tan belly.

[DavidRM]

Thanks all.   Yes, the best solution is sunlight - but long days of summer are gone and I could not get much color change in one day of sunlight here in Northern Oregon.    The airbrush solution I think would be best- another motivation for me to learn to use one!    I like the Dieselpunk.ro suggestion but I didn't see this until after I was done - I tested this on a small piece of scrap using denim instead of felt - I may use this technique in a future project just for the color variation effect (although it leaves some wax on which would affect any finish application afterwards).    I didn't want a worn look - just the color change so I didn't try the boiling water.   I discovered I had some light brown leather dye in the back of my cabinet that I had forgotten about and I used that.     I really appreciate all the suggestions!  I made multiple attempts to upload a photo - I kept editing the photo to lower resolution  After I got the file size down to 871KB and I kept getting complaints about 1.46MB being the maximum file size - I gave up.   If I figure it out some day - I will upload to share.

[Handstitched]

In cases like this, I do have a  water based dye , the colour is ' Camel' , that does help( I thin it out sometimes to get the colour I want . Its a close approximation to ' aged leather ' . You could put it out in the sun, it is skin after all, but that could also dry it out a bit too much . But you could use oils and dressings to soften it up. 

HS

HS