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I'm confused about the purpose of some of these products


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I stopped by Tandy's yesterday to pick up some dye for a sheath I'm making.  While there, I bumped into a lady who claimed to have been carving leather for a "couple of years now" and asked what I was looking for and what was my project.  Told her I was making a knife sheath that I wanted to dye and antique.  I had already chosen the dye and had it in hand.  She reached up on the shelf and handed me two bottles.  One was Pro Resist and the other was Tan Coat.  I "think" she said the Pro Resist goes on top of the stain to protect it while applying antique and the Tan Coat was to go on top of the antique to keep it from rubbing off on things, i.e. clothing, etc.    Since I'm not positive of the order I "think" she told me, I got on the Internet and looked up the uses of each of those two items.  It seems that either one of them could be used as a sealer or top-coat.  So now this newbie stands confused, holding one bottle in each hand. :wacko:  Which product is for which purpose?

Chris

"All things are difficult before they are easy." 

                                          (Fortune Cookie Proverb)

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Generally speaking you would use one or the other, although it is reasonable that one might use both products depending on the result you wanted to get.  They are usually used when you have tooled or stamped leather, and you want to apply antique.  They would be used as a "resist" to keep the antique from darkening certain areas of the leather, and to allow the antique to highlight the tooling and carving.  If you don't have tooling, usually you wouldn't use antique but dye only.  Again, this is an art, so you can get different effects by using different techniques in different orders on your project.

You would use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off the leather after you have buffed it off using sheepskin (or towel, etc).  Some would stop there, others like to put a final seal coat with Resolene, although you could use Pro Resist as a seal coat (it is a more shiny finish).

Hopefully this helps a little.

YinTx

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Well, my sheath is stamped and I plan on antiquing it.  Sorry, guess I'm just thick headed, but your explanation has me even more confused.  Don't mean to sound argumentative or unappreciative of the advice.   I'm just new to all of this and don't understand the sequence.

You say I could use one or the other, or both.   Huh???:wacko:    I could use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off.  Why would I want to lift off what I just put on?  I did "get" that Pro Resist is a little more shiny than Resolene................but I don't have any Resolene, so that wasn't a concern.

Chris

"All things are difficult before they are easy." 

                                          (Fortune Cookie Proverb)

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Let me put it to you this way...think in layers here:

  1. pro-resist
  2. tankote to lift off excess antique
  3. antique
  4. resist (pro-resist or tan kote)
  5. targeted/full dying
  6. stamping/tooling
  7. leather

Tan Kote can be used to take some of the muddiness out of antiquing, which seems to occur sometimes. It brightens it up, for lack of a better word.

If you search YouTube for "leather resist" it may help demonstrate what we're trying to explain in words.

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16 minutes ago, Chris623 said:

Well, my sheath is stamped and I plan on antiquing it.  Sorry, guess I'm just thick headed, but your explanation has me even more confused.  Don't mean to sound argumentative or unappreciative of the advice.   I'm just new to all of this and don't understand the sequence.

You say I could use one or the other, or both.   Huh???:wacko:    I could use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off.  Why would I want to lift off what I just put on?  I did "get" that Pro Resist is a little more shiny than Resolene................but I don't have any Resolene, so that wasn't a concern.

why you would want to lift off the antique? well you only want to high light the deeper parts of the carving. I have zero experience carving and staining but from what I see makers do is. apply a resist to the top high spots of the carving. then completely cover the carving with the "stain" antique i guess. then they wait a bit and remove the excess and they are left with a beautiful antiqued finish. 

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Thanks for the video.  I've seen it previously.  I've watched a lot of his videos and really respect his work and videos.

I'm a retired custom furniture building and completely understand the process of antiquing by darkening the recesses and wiping the highlights.  But Yin-Tex said "use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off the leather".  I was just questioning why one would want to lift the remaining antique off?   The idea is to leave some of it on the project.

Okay, here's what my planned sequence is...........correct me it it's wrong.

1. Wipe the leather with rubbing alcohol to make sure no oils are on the surface.

2. Dye the leather.  Allow to dry.

3. Thoroughly cover the dyed leather with Pro Resist.  Allow to dry.

4. Cover the sheath in Antiquing material.  Immediately wipe off excess to expose desired highlights.  Allow antique to dry.

5. Finish with Tan Kote.

Do I have it right or am I still misunderstanding something?

 

 

Chris

"All things are difficult before they are easy." 

                                          (Fortune Cookie Proverb)

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1 hour ago, Chris623 said:

Thanks for the video.  I've seen it previously.  I've watched a lot of his videos and really respect his work and videos.

I'm a retired custom furniture building and completely understand the process of antiquing by darkening the recesses and wiping the highlights.  But Yin-Tex said "use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off the leather".  I was just questioning why one would want to lift the remaining antique off?   The idea is to leave some of it on the project.

Okay, here's what my planned sequence is...........correct me it it's wrong.

1. Wipe the leather with rubbing alcohol to make sure no oils are on the surface.

2. Dye the leather.  Allow to dry.

3. Thoroughly cover the dyed leather with Pro Resist.  Allow to dry.

4. Cover the sheath in Antiquing material.  Immediately wipe off excess to expose desired highlights.  Allow antique to dry.

5. Finish with Tan Kote.

Do I have it right or am I still misunderstanding something?

 

 

That is what I do but I'd hit it with a final coat of Resolene or Pro-resist after the Tan Kote. The Tan Kote is going to help clean up some of the antique from the high spots that are residual from the wipe-ification (science werds) process. The crud in the deep spots will stay behind while the Tan Kote "cleans" up the higher spots and then one last coat of Pro-resist will seal it all up.

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Thanks, battlemunky.

Chris

"All things are difficult before they are easy." 

                                          (Fortune Cookie Proverb)

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Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, Chris623 said:

But Yin-Tex said "use Tan Kote to lift the remaining antique off the leather".

You will discover that there is still some antique on the elevated sections that you want to remove, even after you have wiped it off.  Don even shows some videos where he uses the Tan Kote to clean this up, and you can see his pieces clean up nicely when he does this, and you can see the antique come off onto his sheepskin.  Plenty of antique stays on the valleys and crevices not to mention it will stain the leather in these places so even if you do pull it out (which kinda you do want to, so you don't have antique caked in there, it would crumble out when it dries if you leave that much - presuming you are using paste antique) these places will remain darker.  If you watched the referenced video, he clearly describes the intent at the 26 minute mark or so.

Not sure why you are worried about removing any oil on the leather.  Old timers used the acronym "ONAT" for the process:  Add Oil, then Neatlac, then Antique, then Tan Kote.  If you add alcohol to the leather, you will dry it out.  If you've dyed it, that will dry it out.  You will probably want to add Neatsfoot oil to it to help restore the oil content and nourish the leather. (a little goes a long way). If you let this set overnight, then add the resist, it will be just fine.  Don also demonstrates this, he uses olive oil.  In fact the first nearly 12 minutes of that video discuss this.

You didn't mention what kind of antique you have.  Are you using paste like Don shows, or do you have the gel antique?

YinTx

Edited by YinTx

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