Dyed leather bleeding

[Rahere]

11 hours ago, cdschoonie said:

My project(s) are rifle butt stock bullet holders for 3 of my rifles. The reason I started this thread, is that I made one a year ago for another rifle. It turned out great for my first project attempt. The only issue I have is that it bleeds a little onto the bullets. The rest of it, surprisingly enough, does not bleed off. When I made it, I only watched 2 YouTube videos for guidance. I used Medium Brown dye, and coated it with Neatsfoot. Had I known about Resolene then, I’d probably never had an issue. So this round, I’m using all of your advice, so I’m feeling confident I won’t have any issue. 
Again, thank you all for the sound advice!

It may well be that the rounds are lightly coated in gun oil, to care for the notoriously dry and dusty inside of magazines, and so there's less risk of jams in the breech.

[Handstitched]

On 10/18/2020 at 2:06 AM, TomG said:

What sealers do you use?

G'Day, 

This is what I use:

https://maclaceleather.com.au/product/seal-shine-1-litre/

https://www.birdsall-leather.com.au/DTC/Top-Coat-Leather-Finish/pd.php

HS   

 

[Leather20]

I have big issues with black water colored dye too. When I put a seal on it (no matter if I've buffed before to not) it always fades out and gets streaky (like some parts fade out so badly it looks light gray) and then rubs off on anything around it. I'm using Fiebing's Black dye (water based) and I normally seal with either Resolene or Fiebing's Leather Finish. Any tips? Would going to an oil dye help this?

[battlemunky]

On 10/17/2020 at 10:01 PM, TheCyberwolfe said:

The part I always have the most trouble with is the patience.

This +1000. Patience is a virtue I don't have. One of these days I'm going to actually follow your path and let things dry/cure completely. My stuff generally looks good but it may not look great yet because of my impatience.

[Rahere]

With all respect to Fiebings and Bigfoot, who has a number of videos on their site, simply tagging the product page Ingredient Disclosure isn't what the Law requires. I used to work with one of the world's top specialists in industrial injuries due to skin reactions, and almost anything will trigger someone. Product safety sheets are commonplace in industry, we should encourage them here. It would also facilitate identifying the exact issue, because the following comes from a generalised angle.

Having watched the reactions, which are naturally pragmatic, I come back to a core baseline in fibre dyeing. The original, mediaeval norm involved two ingedients, a colour, and a fixant, usually called a mordant, which holds the colour to the fibre - so-called because it was thought to bite into the fibre.. When I talk about fibre, it's anything, organic or inorganic, we want to colour. Most fibres are pretty good at keeping themselves clean, so a dye, straight-up, isn't always going to stay, which is the issue here.

The usual preparation included extensive cleaning, often using natural ammonium (I'll spare you the details) as well as degreasers. That was followed by soaking in the mordant (which may have been where tanning started, as tannins are often used), then dying, and finally fixing with the mordant again. Quite a faff, so things have been simplified.

Without knowing exactly what's in your dye, an educated guess suggests a certain likelihood of an azo dye which binds to leather in a cationic ion exchange reaction. This simplifies the issue, because it suggests one of two possibilities: too much dye, or insufficient cleaning. I note that the Fiebings pages emphasise use of their cleaner product first, which hasn't been mentioned.

The question of too much dye suggests it might be preferable to be sparing on the first dye, and come back with more if the need arises. We all know that a form of surface tension capilliary action spreads the dye quite efficiently (sometimes too much so if you're trying to keep it to an area), so perhaps we should allow the leather to dictate.

At the same time, I'm not going to exclude other additives such as a resin coating, which could make repeat dyeing problematic. For this reason, testing on scrap is probably wise.