over dyeing

[Tim P]

i have been asked to share experiences of my attempts at a depot redye look. Having had a mind to do it for some time now I recently darkened to a deep seal a jacket that I had washed to remove an aroma that I couldnt get on with. the washing process left it dry and I thought, if such a jacket went to the shop for refurb in the day, it would be an ideal candidate for a redye so I chose this one as the one I would attempt it on.
i chose it because of the high spot wear that the wash had created and, in choosing a translucent dye such as fieblings, not an opaque one such as lady esquire (which btw is good for painting jackets, being acrylic it is easy to apply and will last without cracking ,if that is what you want) I made full advantage of the fact that I could allow that wear to show as much as I wanted. so, armed with the dye, a nice deep brown, I used a small house paint brush to cover the jacket one panel at a time, going over it with a sponge quickly so that there were no brush marks. I wiped with the sponge gently where I wanted slightly less dye to allow for a slightly weathered effect. with a medium soft flat artists brush I then touched up as the drying process permitted to obtain the exact effect i wanted. thin coats build up nicely.
sadly no pics as my computer will not permit. maybe when it is fixed..
these points are think are valuable.
1 use a dry jacket, I wonder if goatskin, being oilier would repel the dye as it is water based. even acetone stripping may not be enough.
2 I reckon that any effect from redye worn off, best using a russet jacket, with tasteful and careful wiping right through to fresh from the shop, using an opaque dye (or colourant)
3, for that real dark colour, a small ammount of black may work wonders mixed in with the brown but I would use the same brand....
4 sorry I dont know what US brands to reccommend/.
I am happy with what I have achieved.
Tim
good luck
...

 

[442RCT]

Thanks for the sharing info on your leather jacket dyeing project.

I have a cheap 'distressed' dyed A-2 that I want to dye a darker brown and even out the color. I went to the local leather shoppe to buy some dye for the project. The owner said he wouldn't recommend that the jacket be dyed by hand as it would leave swirl patterns. He recommended that I buy boxes of cold water fabric dye and soak the entire jacket. He told me he'd only read about this process and hadn't had any real experience with it. He told me that in California he was no longer able to sell solvent based leather dyes and only had water based dyes, which he felt were too translucent for such a project.

I then went to a shoe repair shoppe and asked to purchase a bottle of brown shoe dye thinking that shoe dye would be more opaque. The shoe repairman asked me the same question, what are you going to dye ? I told him about the jacket project and he replied that I should bring the jacket in so he could assess the materials needed. He wasn't optimistic, saying that a 'pre-distressed' dyed jacket would be problematic to dye evenly as the manufacturer may have used a prep process on the leather to purposefully make it absorb dye at a different rate in order to make it looked distressed.

 

[zoomer]

The obstacles to this kind of work are many - besides the pros, who are reluctant to pass on their knowledge during their working lives, and see no point to doing so afterwards. Any questions you ask will likely be met with "no, you can't."

There is also a big body of knowledge - no one has it all - about the reactions and behaviors of various dyes over various leathers and finishes. Trial and error is both required and costly - you can't just get swatches of old leathers and know how they're treated without experience. And you only get that experience by a lot of smelly and possibly toxic hours fooling around with jackets you don't care about.

I basically had to junk a Willis & Geiger A-2 because I put pro quality shoe dye over its very heavy acrylic finish. The result was an overdye that dried on, but never soaked in. 2 years later it still rubs onto hands, tabletops, etc. Nothing will get it off but a solvent bath - say several bottles of rubbing alcohol in a big bucket. If and when I do that, it will be strictly to see if it can be done, as I no longer give a flip about the W&G itself.

 

[Anonymous]

I have dyed and re dyed a few leather jackets. The best way I have found is to prep the leather first, get all the glaze or acrilic coating off with a "leather pre dye " solution, available on line or at shoe repair shops. Acetone works too but may be a little harsh to the leather.

Once the coating is removed, a thin coat of dye. Allow to dry. Then another coat. Continue untill you are happy with the color.

Then a light polish with a clean cotton t shirt.

You can seal the dye with Pecards or wax but it will rub off a bit.

I like to use a light coat of acrilic to seal the dye to the leather, it does not crack or peel-will get the band name later(not at home right now).

Then a light coat of Pecards after 48 hours-seems to soften the acrilic coating and take the shine off a little.

Anyway, the above has worked for me.

 

[zoomer]

I wish something could have taken the acrylic off my W&G. It was impervious!

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like some industrial grade covering Zommer. The stuff I use is water soluble and very light. Satin finish I believe, I will forward the name of the stuff later, it was a family leather polish/dye company from Ca. Available in most shoe repair shops on the west coast. Angeles or something like that.

 

[deeb7]

... it was a family leather polish/dye company from Ca. Available in most shoe repair shops on the west coast. Angeles or something like that.

Angelus ... Santa Fe Springs.

http://www.angelusshoepolish.com/

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, thank you, thats the stuff. Works great IMHO.

 

[442RCT]

The obstacles to this kind of work are many - besides the pros, who are reluctant to pass on their knowledge during their working lives, and see no point to doing so afterwards. Any questions you ask will likely be met with "no, you can't."

There is also a big body of knowledge - no one has it all - about the reactions and behaviors of various dyes over various leathers and finishes. Trial and error is both required and costly - you can't just get swatches of old leathers and know how they're treated without experience. And you only get that experience by a lot of smelly and possibly toxic hours fooling around with jackets you don't care about.

I basically had to junk a Willis & Geiger A-2 because I put pro quality shoe dye over its very heavy acrylic finish. The result was an overdye that dried on, but never soaked in. 2 years later it still rubs onto hands, tabletops, etc. Nothing will get it off but a solvent bath - say several bottles of rubbing alcohol in a big bucket. If and when I do that, it will be strictly to see if it can be done, as I no longer give a flip about the W&G itself.

I took my junque eBay acquired Willis & Geiger A-2 to one of the local shoe repair shoppes after unsuccessfully trying to buy leather dye to 'fix' the uneven fading on this jacket. The jacket is pretty much a mess in the condition it's in, it looked like it'd been hanging on a hook exposed to sunlight, where the leather was exposed to the sun, it was faded and the folds underneath were darker. Also the leather itself was a curious 'grain', I named it zebra stripped because of the pattern. The shoppe owner is an olde school European man who mainly repairs shoes. He told me to leave the jacket with him for awhile and he would "work" it out for me. He told me he would first match the faded areas with the darker areas of the leather, then he'd darken the whole jacket to a seal brown. When I asked how much this was going to cost, I was surprised because it was no more than me going out to buy the stuff to do the job myself...and as a bonus, he's an experienced professional. I wish now that I'd taken 'before' pics of the jacket to match with 'after' pics.

But, one of the more interesting talents this gentleman has is his nose for leather. He told me he can tell what kind of leather it is by the smell. He sniffed my W&G and told me it wasn't cowhide, it had a 'wilder' smell and said it was horsehide. There was nothing on the label indicating what kind of leather this jacket was made from. I thought it was interesting that a man who'd worked with leather all his life knew just from the smell what animal the leather was from.

 

[zoomer]

No one could have smelled anything but coating on my W&G. They changed their A-2 a lot over the years.

It's very uncommon these days to see a label specifying anything more than Genuine Leather. I don't think any country requires it - leather is leather for commerce. Genuine Horsehide, Goatskin, etc. are prestige labels for the specialty market (ie: us and guys like us).