Leather Learn
My instructions for doing leatherwork as an art and a craft.
Archive for the ‘Finishing’ Category
Color & Finish 106 – Dyes Simplified
Friday, September 28th, 2007
I do recommend Al Stohlman’s book, Coloring Leather, (not How to Color Leather). It
is still a very relevant book.
There are a few changes happening in the world of dyes – solvent (spirit based / alcohol
based) dyes are being phased out and water based dyes will be the only ones available in
a few years time. Some states have already stopped the sale of solvent (alcohol) based
dyes.
Pro-oil dye is a higher quality version of spirit based dye – it is simply spirit based dye
with a bit of oil added and a better pigment base - it gives better penetration into the
leather and takes a bit longer to dry. The coverage is a bit more even. First choice if
you can get it.
Eco-Flow water based dye – the new generation dyes – so far looks to be the next
choice, mainly because they will hopefully prove to be a lot more color fast than the old
regular spirit based dyes, like Tandy Pro Dye and Fiebing’s spirit dyes.
I know your leather craft store is stocked with hundreds of little bottles, so I will expand
on this theme as much as I can, but here is the short version:
1. The first liquid to hit your leather, is water if you want to tool and/or shape your
leather (“casing”).
2. The next liquid to touch your leather, is dye, if you want to change the color of
the leather or parts of the leather.
3. The third possible liquid you use, is a resist (in order of preference: Neatlac /
SuperSheen / Blockout), if you want to shield some parts of the leather by being
colored by the next liquid. There is another article on this blog about resisting.
4. Now you can consider using an antique finish on the leather, if you wish to have
an antiquing effect, mostly on tooled leather (it sits in the tool impressions and
makes them more pronounced).
5. Lastly you add a finish / dressing / conditioner: for working leather I prefer
Dubbin, Dr Jackson’s, Aussie; for leather that was painted with acrylic paints, I
prefer and acrylic finish like Supersheen or Satinsheen.
If you want a light stain and thereby enhance the tooling on the leather, you need to dye
your project with a much diluted (with water) Eco-Flo dye – that is how a lot of the
products shown in the Tandy catalog was done.
To further emphasize the tooling, you can use an antique finish over the dye – the
antique finish will add its own color to the project, unless you have the project fully or
partially resisted. I still need to experiment with the new antique gel, but for a more
subtle effect, you should be able to dilute the antique gel as well.
I hope this sheds some light! (… and color….)
Posted in Dyeing, Finishing | Comments Off
Using Resist – for Antiqueing
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007
USING RESIST
I had this request: “I have been using block-out to keep my dye out of what I have stamped, but I can’t
get it to resist. Please help me with my leather resist problem.”
My first answer
would be that it
could be that you
are trying to use a
spirit based dye
over the resist and
that will be less
successful. On this
scanned piece of
leather I covered the bottom half of the leather with super sheen as a resist.
On the very left I used antique gel on the leather – it wiped off nice and clean off the
resist.
In the center I used Eco-Flo water based dye and although it did not wipe off the resist
so very completely, the result is still successful.
On the right I used a normal spirit based dye and the obvious result is awful. Now let us
have a look at the intended use of a resist:
Purpose: A resist is used before you use an antique stain to make sure the antique
finish/stain does not change the color of the leather, but only gets into the tool
impressions so that it gets to the antique effect.
Products: Several products can be used as a resist: Neatlac, SuperSheen, SatinSheen,
Blockout, RTC. As you can see, all these products are also classified as finishes, i.e.
they are also used as finishes on veg-tan leather after dyes have been applied.
When to Resist: After tooling the project, you decide on a color for the project. This
color change in the leather is achieved with dye. If you are also going to apply an
antique stain to the project, and you do not want the antique gel / paste / liquid to
change the overall color of the project, you need to apply a resist over the project first.
Everyone recommends two layers of resist – and you must allow then to dry properly (I
do overnight).
The Effect: When you now apply the antique stain, and wipe it off with a soft damp
cloth, the stain will only remain in the tool impressions and you will be able to wipe it
off the smooth parts of the leather. You will have to seal in the antique stain by putting a
layer of finish over the stain.
Variations on Resist: You might choose to use the resist only on the tooled design and
not on the background – a two tone effect. This will take some fancy brush work with a
fine artist brush. It will mean that the antique stain will change the color of the leather
on the unresisted areas, but on the tooled areas you will be able to wipe most of the stain
off the leather.
This first
photo shows
some
variations:
From top left
clockwise: 1.
The whole
design and
background
was dyed
with Eco-Flo
Range Tan
Dye and the
left half of
the quarter
was resisted
with Super
Sheen. 2. In
the top right
the design only was resisted with Block Out. MINI-MOVIE 3. Bottom right the whole
quarter was resisted with Block Out – bot design and background. 4. Bottom left the
background was dyed brown with Eco-Flow Timber Brown [MINI-MOVIE] and the
design was
resisted with
Super Sheen.
After the
first photo,
Antique Gel
Medium
Brown was
applied as
seen in the little Minimovies (to follow in a day or two) and this is a photo of the
results.
Problems with Resist: Resist is not very successful to keep dye away from leather,
especially the spirit based (alcohol based) dyes. These dyes will penetrate through most
resists.
Not Yet Tested: The new Eco-Flo dyes are all water based and might just work very
well with the resist technique described above. Hopefully I can test these tomorrow and
take some photos to enhance this blog entry! Keep an eye on this space!
Posted in Dyeing, Finishing, MiniMovies | No Comments »
Color & Finish 104 – All-in-One
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
All-in-One is a product sold by Tandy
Leather Factory. It is both a dye and a
finish all in one!
It works very well in situations where
you want to dye a complete piece of
leather. It also has a darkening effect
in tool impressions. The finish is
much like Super Sheen, a water based
acrylic finish. There is therfore no
fumes to sniff or worry about.
In the MINI MOVIE you will see how
this product is applied and how the
excess is wiped off. Take care to wipe
off very lightly so that the All-in-One that is in the tool impressions, do not get wipes
out of those depressons – you want it to dry there to have the eventual darker effect.
The photo below show the finshed piece of leather incorporated into a card holder.
(The back part of the card holder was done in the frog skin pattern shown else where in
this blog and then it was colored with acrylic paint.)
Posted in
Dyeing,
Finishing,
MiniMovies |
No
Comments »
Color &
Finish 101
Tuesday,
August 8th,
2006
This is
probably the
aspect of
leathercraft
where there
are as many
opinions as
there are crafters, and most of them will swear by their own methods as gospel truth. So,
I want to give you my opinion as well, but with the hope that it will clarify some of the
confusion that exist around dyes, stains, finishes, dressings and oils.This whole
discussion will center around vegetable-tan (treebark tanned) leather. This is the only
leather to be treated with the products I will discuss.
The basic sequence in any project will more than likely be as follows:
1. The project is cut out and tooling / stamping is done.
2. The leather is dyed – either completely or selectively.
3. A choice is made between a) not using an antique stain, b) lightly using an
antique stain just to highlight tooling or c) making heavy use of an antique stain
in such a way as to drastically add to the color of the leather.
4. A finish or dressing is added to the leather to waterproof and lubricate the
leather fibers.
5. The project is assembled.
Step 2 above, dyeing, can be left out if you want the natural color to remain, but
remember that antique stains over un-dyed leather might not be successful at all.
Step 3 can be left out all together.
Step 4 can never be left out! You always have to feed leather! Putting a dressing on
leather will bring out the color of the dyes (make it glow), waterproof the leather (your
best defence against stains) and make the leather softer (if you have not treated it for the
making of armor.
OK, more soon! If you have any questions, please e-mail me and I will add to this blog
as fast as I can! My e-mail address is leatherworker at gmail.com
