Vinegaroon.

I have used Vinagroon before.

Made a holster for a friend using it.

I tried to neutralize the vinegroon with baking soda....



I found, even after drying, and treating the leather I could still smell the vinegroon.

Here is an example.



The clip/flashlight holder was only a scrap piece from cutting the sheath. I though I might as well see if I could use it.

 
Horsewright said:
Stig if this stuff dye's better aren't you more afraid of it for the same reasons? I'm a hot neatsfoot oil kind of a guy myself, as you know, but drum dyed is the way to go if ya got to have darker colors. All that being said, Mkleathers sheath above looks pretty darn good.
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The vinegaroon would certainly leave a nasty, stinky mess, but it's very translucent, not clear, mind, but far more likely to disguise from my wife. The sample in the first pic was achieved while the solution was still completely clear. Looked nothing different from regular vinegar. I think that's why I was so surprised to get such nice results.

sheathmaker said:
and if it does tip over get the hell out of there because you are in an earthquake!
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Well, I DO live in California... :D

Seriously though, that's a good idea. I haven't had the best of luck with Fiebings bottles, or my old eco-flo for that matter. Eco-flo I had stored in a box. Thankfully I had taken a moment to bag up all the bottles in a big plastic zip lock. More than one bottle leaked its contents. That stuff dries weird btw. It turns into a big chunk of brittle dye that, even dry and shiny, still stains your skin. Fiebings, though I've only owned their products for a few months, also likes to leak. The black got everywhere the one time I went without gloves. The yellow leaked too, but not as bad.

Speaking of Fiebings yellow... I used it on a sample the other day for the first time, and I'm really disappointed with the results. I'm not sure if it's because it's old (Dwayne, no sound of crystals when shaken, although the outside[?] of the seal had a bunch of yellow crystal mess on it), anyone else get a barely noticeable color using it? I was surprised because my green dye gives a nice bright color.
 
I've heard that if the acid is not properly neutralize you could end up damaging the finish on your knife from leaving it in the sheath. Is this true?
 
Teknison said:
I've heard that if the acid is not properly neutralize you could end up damaging the finish on your knife from leaving it in the sheath. Is this true?
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Yea, I mentioned it above. :) The remedy suggested and a mix of baking soda and water will also help. But like the tanning solutions, its all in the rinse.
 
leatherman said:
Very good Sam. :) I very much appreciate custom dye applications. Doing a few myself at the moment. Sometimes good old un-dyed veggie tanned leather is necessary. Its like a blank canvas. :D
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Very cool. Please share when you do. I mostly do straight black or brown on my sheaths, but its fun to do custom combos, or layering colors to achieve a certain effect, etc. I would love to see pics :)

Sam
 
I have had great success with Vinegaroon. In the past, I just used USMC Black fiebings dye, and I discovered that it would rub off in some areas of the holsters I was making, especially the areas that were compressed by because of molding. I dye the leather with roon first, neutralize and then a final coat of black dye. Works great!

I brush the vinegaroon on. By brushing, the interior of the leather that contacts the pistol/knife does not have any of the solution on it. Make sure you neutralize with bicarbonate of soda and water. The first time I tried this stuff, I used it on a belt for myself and didn't know to neutralize it. The belt split in half a couple years later, and I could literally tear the 10oz leather belt by hand.

As far as the smell...it goes away in a few weeks.

A good tutorial:

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=14946
 
I missed some of these replies somehow. Well, I know how. Me and the tapatalk app have a love/hate relationship.

Good looking sheath! I haven't really looked at one in person, so I don't have much to compare to, but it looks like good work. :)

Thanks for the additional comments. I'm making a new sheath today and I plan to use the 'groon and soda. I'll post pics of the results. It'll be plain so it should show well.

Question. I have been dyeing after tooling. Since the vinegaroon blackens so deeply, is there any reason not to stamp after "dyeing"?
 
I took about 6 pieces of leather with the dye bottle size hole and glued them together. Bout 1 1/2 ' thick. And also agree with Paul, drum dyed is the way! But if I dye black, I always dye navy blue first. Then black
 
Drum dyed sounds great! I don't use enough leather at this point to buy one color. I'm trying to justify buying two different thicknesses even, but that's going to be a must in order to do linings and inlays.

I did find that my 4" belt sander does a much better job of skive tapering than my little hand held safety skiver though. My welts will definitely benefit from it.

Well I made the pattern, cut it out, did some grooving, then stamped it. I think that I'll use an antique or highlight instead of straight black. Just don't think it would look as good totally black. At this point I'm trying to figure out where only black fits in to my sheath making. Maybe inlay windows, liners and danglers.

Edit- pro-tip...

Don't glue the welt in before stamping. :o

I'm hoping that I can work some of the deep camouflage out with water and modeling spoon from the back side.

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Okay, I'll play. What's with the double stitch line BEFORE the loop is stitched and the sheath is glued up and edges prepared for edge stitch???????

Don't glue the welt before tooling?? Duh

Paul
 
sheathmaker said:
Okay, I'll play. What's with the double stitch line BEFORE the loop is stitched and the sheath is glued up and edges prepared for edge stitch???????

Don't glue the welt before tooling?? Duh

Paul
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Yeah, gluing the welt in was a big mistake. It was actually more indecision than an outright error. I pondered stamping it last night and decided against it. Today, before work, I figured I'd do it anyway. I got the welt off the edge of the marble the best I could, but yeah...

Not sure what you mean about the rest? I'm sorta flying blind so I'm sure a lot of the stuff I'm doing is out of order.

Here's how I do it-

Draw up, and make sure the pattern fits the knife.

Cut out the leather pattern.

Decide on what I'm going for (or not, in this case).

Groove the stitch line(s).

Groove, or run a modeler point along the stitch line, just for looks.

Mark the stitch holes and loop holes with the overstitcher.

Stamp, or not.

Glue the welt on one side.

Dye.

Drill the loop holes with a needle.

Stitch the loop.

Glue the other side to the welt.

Stitch the body.

Run the belt grinder to even the edges.

Edge bevel everything.

Burnish.

Wet form.

Seal.

I know I'm leaving a bunch of the steps out, but those are the main order of how I do it. I may do some things differently depending on the sheath. The one above has a little bit of edging, and pre-burnishing.

I would really appreciate it if you could tell me what's out of order, or something I'm missing.
 
Okay, I looked a lot closer and now realize it is a groove line and stitch holes…..not yet stitched. A quick look at that photo with these old eyes looked like it was stitched with light colored thread. Carry on.

Paul
 
Ah, yes, I'm not THAT bad. At least I hope not. That said, I tried using the camo backwards on a scrap, liked the results, but I don't care for it that much on this sheath. I may try squeezing another round in there in the normal direction where the points will be between the points of the first row. That probably makes no sense. I always try to practice on scrap before I try it on the real deal, but sometimes even then it doesn't work as you'd hoped.
 
I had to go back for another look as well, it indeed does look stitched at first! :D
 
Yeah the overstitcher makes a really nice pattern. It does look like it's stitched, regardless of how old or young your eyes are. :)

I'll clue you guys in on a little fact. I only have black waxed thread at the moment. :D
 
Okay, keeping in mind that I just quickly went over this before work...

I tried when I got home to dye the edges black. The saddle tan must have acted as a resist (lesson learned, dye the border black first) because I could NOT get the black Fiebings to dye. The edge at the left was the result going over it about 4 times. The edge on the right was after one quick swab with vinegaroon. I still have a bunch of work to do to get this sheath looking good, but I think it's possible.

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This sheath has been a pain. The next will either get just saddle tan, or just neatsfoot and waxed. Also, I won't stamp the inside of the loop, it won't show anyway, it's a short loop with a dangler, but yeah, next time I won't bother. :)
 
Vinegaroon, Sure works great.... 300 hundred years ago. It stinks, takes time to make, takes to bloody long to dry, stinks, takes time neutralizing it, makes a mess. And it stinks.

Or, go cut what you need off a drum dyed hide, take a couple seconds to run it through the splitter then go on about your day.
 
Alright, just for the future edification of anyone that may stumble upon this thread...

I'm well on my way to hating this stuff. :p

I haven't found it particularly difficult to work with when simply "dyeing " a single article black. Neutralizing seems easy if it's actually working. No easy way to tell.

I cannot take the smell though... I've used the stuff fairly sparingly but wow... It's so gross I'm tossing it. If it wasn't so rank, and I knew for certain that it wasn't damaging the leather, I'd use it, but yeah, it's disgusting.

I went ahead and dyed the whole sheath black because the stuff migrated to the tan area while giving the whole thing a bath. I'll post pics later.

The sheath doesn't actually smell, but using it certainly does.

Here's the thing... I really enjoy the smell and textures of working with leather. I realized this last night as I was using some neatsfoot and gum trag. Even Fiebings dye is not unpleasant for me. Weldwood drives my wife crazy, but again, it doesn't really bother me. Vinegaroon does. In a big way.

I'm actually bummed about all of this because it simply works far better than dye (for me), but I really gave it a shot. I tried to get over it, but I can't. Not with the obvious downside of taking away one of the things that I enjoy so much about working with leather.

I'll also concede that it's more work than dye. Obviously buying pre dyed is the way to go if you are using a lot.

So that's about the long and short of it. I've found from my own experience that this is not the right stuff for me. Bummer.

Thanks for sticking with me through this guys. If anyone is curious about it, I still very much endorse trying it for yourself.
 
This is exactly what this forum is all about, an exchange of ideas. :)

I do love watching the process's, watching the craftsmen evolve in their craft, and hoping that I learned something along the way as well.

Sky, I think you forgot to mention that it stinks, just sayin. :p

And yes, I love the smell of gum trag, dye, and especially that smell in my shop on a muggy day when the leather lets go of its scent, that or new leather day, both fill my shop with that wonderful scent.
 
I forgot to mention that I also had to add a step of cleaning the tooling since some of the baking soda settled into the deeper marks. Wasn't a big deal, but it did take additional time.

So, as far as the vinegaroon goes...

Dyed the sheath

Let it dry

Neutralized with bs

Let dry mostly

Applied neatsfoot

Finished edges

Had to touch up edges

Re do the soda

Let dry

Clean with saddle soap

Let dry

Now I've got to finish it with a beeswax conditioner.

Probably not THAT much more time doing a single sheath, although definitely more. Doing bulk sheaths would be a nightmare.

Anyway, here's the sheath without a finish. I still haven't found a method for burnishing that really works for me. I do find that the edges are better straight off the sander than if I fiddle with hand sanding, but I'm not giving up. I just need to keep trying different things. I'll get there.

Keep in mind that ALL of my sheaths thus far are just test beds for various things that I want to try. This sheath looks too much like a holster to me with the black weave. I wouldn't put this leather together with a bushcraft sheath. I'll probably give it away.

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I can say that the stamping came out much better than the last time I tried it. The much heavier mallet, along with some modifying that I did to the stamp made better impressions. Oh it's my first double stitched row. I won't be doing those on a normal bases. Not because it's more work, but because I feel that it's unnecessary, at least at this point.
 
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