Staining with leather dye.

[Dave]

I want to ask a has anybody used leather dye in their stock? I was doing some testing on some maple test boards when I thought I would give it a try. I used some Feibings pro walnut dye as the base, dried it and sanded it back, it left the stripes dark. I put LMF honey maple, dried it, and put some Lancaster on it. I was really please with the results.

[Marcruger]

Those dyes can lack colorfastness if exposed to light.  The LMF dyes have a much better reputation for holding their color over time.  The champion is of course Aqua Fortis which is not a dye.   God bless, Marc

[Dave]

Thanks! That answers my question.

[Hungry Horse]

Feibings is not sunlight resistant. Maple is best stained with tanic acid, Aquafortis, or something similar. And the color tinted with a good spirit stain. If you can’t resist using leather dye, use Lincoln’s leather dye, its sunlight resistant.

  Hungry Horse

[thecapgunkid]

Try thinning the Fiebings to about half strength and using it to whisker.  It will highlight almost everything, especially around your carving.

If you are as good as some of these guys in this post, you'll want stain or aqua.

I've used Feibings ( both alcohol and no alcohol based) as a sort of primer coat underneath stain when I want a dark, limited feature color.  No fading that way, although I sometimes mix up my "i"'s and "e"'s in spelling...

[Dave]

I used the pro dye that has some oil base to it and mixed it half denatured alcohol. It seemed to darken the stripes I wanted darkened easily.

[Eric Krewson]

I always use leather dye on bamboo when I make a bamboo backed bow, like was said, it will fade over time unless you make it very dark.

[Bigmon]

This is Fiebring's leather dye "Cordovan", cut with denatured alcohol about 1 to 8, on cherry.
It was coal black and I sanded and steel wooled it back.  Probaly should have left it darker, but it's ok.

[Marcruger]

Dave, I investigated the Fiebing's Pro Dye and the oil part.  What I found is that the Pro Dye does not have oil in it, but rather that it is more compatible with oiling leather than their regular dye.  If you notice, the current packaging does not say, "oil" on it anymore. 

Yes, I do use the Pro Dye with my leather work most of the time.  Good stuff.  It is just not light-resistant on anything but leather in my experience. 

James Rogers has vastly more experience than I do with that Pro Dye, so you may want to check with him. 

God Bless,   Marc

[Dave]

Thanks Marc.

[Eric Kettenburg]

If you absolutely must use an aniline based dye, you'd be much better off starting with one specifically designed for wood i.e. the LMF products mentioned above or the 'Trans Tint' dyes marketed to woodworkers.  Both are deliberately oriented toward being lightfast which is a tough thing when working with any of these synthetics.

[Bob Gerard]

The second longrifle I built was in 1989 or so, and I used leather dye from Tandy Leather Company. It came in small plastic bottles, and may have been alcohol based, I can't remember. It has a Cherry stock.
It still looks as dark and rich as when it was new.

[thecapgunkid]

The late Nate McKenzie made me my first hand made gun about thirty years ago.  True to his eye for authenticity, he used aqua fortis.  True to its sometimes nature, the AF started to turn green.  I stripped the gun and loaded up on leather dye  and got it to a dark brown.

That piece never faded nor lost its character right up until 2013 when I traded it off at Dixons. In 2015 that gun showed up again at Dixons and was  really beat up by the owner trying to off load it.  The best feature on that gun was the color, which was every bit as deep as the day I put it on. 

I sometimes wonder whether the greenish tint or the fading dye has something more to do with the wood than the character of the color.

[flinchrocket]

Aqua Fortis will not turn green. What you had was chromium trioxide ( magic maple stain ).

[Daryl]

Chromium Trioxide was a favourite stain (by many) back in the 70's. Add UV over time and it turned green.

[Herb]

I have used Fiebings dark brown oil leather stain on many stocks for years and I have not noticed any fading.  I did have to refinish another custom builder's  longrifle stained with something from the Green River Rifle Works, some kind of acid.  Though the rifle was basically unused and had been kept in a closet for 8 or 10 years, it had faded until it looked like pine.  In experimenting how to refinish it, I tried Fiebings in the barrel channel.  That stain went right through the finish and gave it a dark brown color with a reddish tint.  That was maybe 10 years ago, and that rifle looks the same now.

[thecapgunkid]

Whatever it was, it turned green.  The dye stayed true.

[Hungry Horse]

 You can get away with using Feibings leather dye on softer, open grain woods, but hard woods with closed grain, or a lot of natural oils, will become a problem in no time.

  Hungry Horse

[Herb]

My stocks were hard sugar maple or red maple.

[mikeyfirelock]

Take extra precautions when sanding chromium trioxide stained wood.   As I recall from pharmacology class……… Breathing or ingesting may cause some really nasty pulmonary effects.   Wear good breathing protection ( a rated mask) and if you must do it, do it outdoors or in a well ventilated area.

[dogcatcher]

Look at Behlen Solar-Lux dyes. 

[thecapgunkid]

Dog...are these leather dyes?

[dogcatcher]

Dog...are these leather dyes?

They are wood dyes.  https://www.woodfinishsupply.com/SolarLux.html