Dye FAIL. Not sure how to fix it.

[Aspikes18]

So I was preparing things to dip dye a belt and I accidentally spilled some dye on the belt. Rookie mistake, I know. Well of course, now that terrible spot is going to be darker than the rest of the belt if I dip dye it. I thought of dying it with a dauber but not sure how the edges of the messed up spot will blend with the rest. Suggestions? I absolutely cannot scrap it. It’s some of the best tooling I’ve ever done. HELP! 

[chuck123wapati]

1 minute ago, Aspikes18 said:

So I was preparing things to dip dye a belt and I accidentally spilled some dye on the belt. Rookie mistake, I know. Well of course, now that terrible spot is going to be darker than the rest of the belt if I dip dye it. I thought of dying it with a dauber but not sure how the edges of the messed up spot will blend with the rest. Suggestions? I absolutely cannot scrap it. It’s some of the best tooling I’ve ever done. HELP! 

maybe get a course grained sponge, they use them a lot for watercolor painting, and mottle the whole belt.

[Alaisiagae]

The dauber technique might work. And then you could do a second coat? Sometimes the finish (e.g. Super Shene) will help reduce blotchiness (depends on the dye, though).  

[fredk]

Extreme measure; get some lacquer thinners (aka cellulose thinners). Soak a clean rag with it and apply to the spot. Get that spot really wet with the thinners and rub vigorously with the clean rag, turn the rag to a clean section as you go. The thinners should dilute and lift a lot of the dye out. You'll need to feed the leather with nfo later as the thinners will remove the oils and dry out the leather

[Sheilajeanne]

I've spilled small spots of dyes in areas that hadn't been dyed yet. Rarely does the first coat of dye go on evenly, in my experience. By the time you've got the second coat on, everything usually evens out, unless it's really crappy leather.

I would give Fred's method a try before dyeing the rest of the belt , if it really looks that bad.

[Arturomex]

I know it won't help show that tooling off but there's always the option to go with black.

[battlemunky]

If you do have to go all black you can get some acrylic paint of your choosing and apply like antique to bring out some of the tooling detail lost to the blacking of the piece.