Testing Natural Walnut Dye

[HorsePen Henry]

Yer welcome, Dalton, and thank you for the compliment. I think this way makes the seeds look like they are down inside the petals and the petals come up and out from the seeds.

Maybe it's my wild imagination.

Watchyerhair,

X Horse Pen

[cowboywc]

Well gents, here it is! I opted not (forgot) to sew the outer part of the loop, but its glued and edged, so.....

As neat as the Dodge City holster looks, it is not the style for me. I just dont care for the ride, and it seems hard for me to get a good grip on the gun to pull it out. Maybe the back is too high.

This is the final result with a good coat of Skidmores, then about 2 hours on the dash of my Galaxie cruisin around today.

Question for you experienced carvers.... Do you cut around the flower center??? I did, and think it looks terrible. Should I just bevel it and not cut? DM

Howdy
If I use a center stamp, I will use a camo around it. If it is a seed pod I will cut and bevel it.
WC

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I have another batch of English walnut hulls cooking on the BBQ side burner. I need to stretch what I've already made so I can completely submerge a new holster I'm working on after it's finished.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

I have another batch of English walnut hulls cooking on the BBQ side burner. I need to stretch what I've already made so I can completely submerge a new holster I'm working on after it's finished.

That's good Will, leaving it undisturbed while submerged will get you the best results, and when you get that package of Black Walnut hulls , you can take what you have left from your old batch, and use it instead of water to cook the new batch, it will just make it better, and richer. you don't have to worry if you added alcohol to that old batch , the alcohol will disappear after 5 min. of cooking. when it comes to drying , you want to only do your drying as little as possible, putting it in and taking it more than once is harmful to the leather, so you really want to do your testing on scrap for this, when you fine the amount of days it takes to get the color you want , then use that day figure to dye you project, but only dry once on your test pieces, if you test a piece of scrap for two days, dry it, see if you like it, but don't put it back in the dye again, if you are going to try a third day then start over with a fresh piece of scrap,too much in and out is just hard on the leather but it will also effect the color of the dye you will get into your leather. I have a couple of holsters submerged right now, and they will be there for 5 full days, the only thing i will do is everyday swish up the liquid a little and thats all, they will stay submerged the whole time.

                                                                              Have Fun

                                                                      tEN wOLVES 

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Good advice, 10W. I'll toss 5 test scraps in and pull one out each day. In 5 days or less, I'll have the color I want identified. Thanks for the tips.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Update, three days later.

I finished the last batch of dye from the English hulls and have a good gallon of dye. Certainly enough to get some completed holsters done. I have a small bowl with three scraps in it for testing. One will come out each day to see how it looks. The black walnut hulls arrived yesterday and I may start a batch of those soon. It all depends on how nice the existing stuff looks after testing. I have two Frazier holsters to do immediately and a whole rig after that. I'm not sure how to do a belt with such a small batch. If I coil it, it'll touch somewhere and cause a light spot. We'll see. Maybe I'll glue ends on a piece of pvc pipe long enough to take a whole belt and split it lengthwise.

[Dalton Masterson]

Marshall, if you have a Brownells catalog, the bluing tanks might work. Might be a bit pricey tho. I havent looked in awhile. DM

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

  Marshal, all you have to do is leave the dye in a pot/bowl/container that is high enough that you will be able to cover it with your dye, you can swish the dye up a couple times a day and also turn your belt over at the same time, try to stay with  plastic or glass for doing this, when you put your belt in , just loosen it up a little and it will come out fine, I used a large tall wide plastic pitcher the last time , the kind workers use and have in ther trucks, and it worked great and allowed me to get the dye high enough to cover the belt without having to use very much liquid dye. Let me know how you do with this?

                                                                   Have Fun 

                                                                 tEN wOLVES   

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Thanks, 10W. I'll see how that works.

I hadn't thought of a bluing tank, Dalton. Thanks, I may try that if 10W's idea doesn't pan out (no pun intended ).

[Dr. Bob]

(no pun intended ).

Yea, sure!  OK, well, it is YOUR story!   

[santee]

Just post us a picture when it's all ready, Marshall.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Yea, sure!  OK, well, it is YOUR story!   

         Howdy Bob , So how do you like my story so far ?


                            tEN wOLVES 

[HorsePen Henry]

Is it good fiction?

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I have my Frazier holster finished and waiting for my test scraps to be done so I'll know what to expect. Day one scrap is a nice, light to medium brown. I'm looking forward to see what tomorrow's scrap brings.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Howdy Gents

         Will I finished my Cheyeene Holsters today, they were submurged in my walnut dye for five days, I then dried them after molding them to my guns, I conditioned them with Lexol, then a few coats of EVOO, and then a finish coat of Skidmores Leather Cream, I DIDN'T SUN TAN THEM THIS TIME BECAUSE I didn't want them to get too dark I'm going to show these pictures as the process happened. When I put these holsters in the container I first pulled them out of the loops so they would get even coloring, once in the container I put the lid on it and made sure my holsters were submerged.

                                              tEN wOLVES 

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

next this is the color they dried to after being in the dye for five days, and how they finished out, even though they appear to be light in color , the five days of soaking realy impregnates the dye into the leather, and when you add  your oil of choice, the browns just pop out, they came out so well this time , that I chose not to put them in the sun , I feared they might turn too dark of a brown, so this is the color I got with just a few coats of oil and Skidmores, and lots of Lexol before I started the oil, you want to replenish any of the oils that were lost during the dyeing process, using Lexoil first to condition the leather real well, will help bring things back to normal, and then do your EVOO or Neatsfoof oil, several coats or to where your satisfied with the color, and then finish with Skidmores.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

and here are some more pictures of the the same holsters, I really like the tone and shade I got this time. You probably noticed that I used two different shades of leather, the right hand holster had the lightest shade, so on this one I just added more coats of Evoo to bring more of the brown out, and it worked. Over all I think I prefer the darker colors of fresh veg-tan over the lighter, you seem to get better tones from the darker shades, but again it's up to you. These are the final colors after all the oil's and finish coat of Skidmores have dried.
     
    You might have noticed that the edge stamping is different on both holsters, I just wanted to see which way I liked it best , sometimes you just have to think outside the box, and it looks fine to me , it kind of gives it Charactor, ( sorta like Forty Rod )


                                                    Thanks for stopping by and taking a looky loo


                                                                 tEN wOLVES 

[Dalton Masterson]

Dang 10W! I like those. I need to make another something to test out my new better batch of dye. After looking at yours, mine really didnt pick up much walnut color. I think mine is more from the suntanning.
I like the differences in the holsters. Close enough to look the same at a glance, but different upon study. The slight color difference is nice too. One months pay saved to buy another holster. WTG. DM

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Looks great, 10W. You also answered my question on the other thread so now I'll have to go over and edit that. Thanks for the run-down on the dye process. Yeah, those borders are nice. I like the way you made them a bit different, too. Fine work.

[Johnny Dingus]

10 W the outer edges are darker than the inner part at least in my computer screen.  If so what did you do to the outer 1/2" perimeter to get the darker shade?  Was it just more coats of evoo?

Love the coloring and the holsters.  Like I said on the other thread we need a test report from a shoot.

Johnny Dingus