Howdy, I'm HERE!

[mrsbraintan]

  Hello.. nice to meet you all.

I have a beaver tail and want to make a pouch out of it for a friend and I'm kind of in a hurry.. I have some dark brown Rit dye and was wondering if I could use it to color my brain tanned deerskin to match the tail pieces.

Thanks.. Paulette

[Camano Ridge]

I have used rit dye on deerskin and it does work. However if you want dark brown you may have to use more then the directions call for to get the darkness you want. Since you are in a hurry rit may be your best bet, however for future reference this forum has a thread for natural dye tha twill work also.

After you use the rit the deerskin will be stiffer after drying. You will need to use a leather conditioner.

[mrsbraintan]

Thank you.. I plan to tape up a mold made from a piece of wood and stitch some tanned skin to the leather and also to the beaver tails with a welt as well.. I was also thinking to get some red dye to use on the welt.. but that notion completely escaped me when I was at the store that had the Rit.. figures it's 20 miles away. don't happen to have any leather trade wool~


another question would be about using some kind of mordant.. vinegar? would you need to use like say vinegar to set this dye? especially on that red color. wouldn't think that'd look to good bleeding on the rest of the bag. thanks again.

[Bugscuffle]

Strong black coffee makes a redal nice brown dye. Just remember to let the coffee cool down to room temperature before putting any leather ionto it. Ask me how I know this!!

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Welcome to the forum, MBT. Good to see you with us. Looking forward to your posts.

[bedbugbilly]

Welcome to the forum!  Lots of good folks here!

I've used RIT on deerskin - not braintanned but commercially tanned.  I used it to dye a set of "leggings".  As already mentioned, you may want to mix it in a higher concentrate to get a deeper color.  I dyed the skins I did in the washing machine - let them set for a while and then removed.  I didn't use anything to "set" the dye.  As also mentioned, it will stiffen the leather.  All I did was to keep working it as it dried and kept it flexible.  Afterwards, I worked in som of the treatment that Carl Dwyer sold for his moccasins.  It softened them right up and did a good job of making it weather resistant. 

Good luck!  I hope you'll post some photos when you're done.  Sounds like an interesting project.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

 

Welcome mrsbraintan, we hope you will enjoy our forum here, there is a lot of good folks here that will help you with your craft.

           tEN wOLVES 

[mrsbraintan]

Thank you for your welcomes. I did try some coffee.. not strong enough! and just added some liquid Rit right to it.. along with a dollop of apple cider vinegar! Well I removed it from the dye bath.. quite strong liquer and rinsed the dickens out of it and wrung the pieces I was dyeing and when dried, they had more of a purple hue.. great.. so back into the dyebath with some rinsing and no wringing and are drying near the wood stove! hopefully there will be little purple cast to the pieces!

I plan to stitch the raw but pickled skins together over perhaps some raw deerskin so it will dry hard and stiffened anyway.. I will also find some brass tacks from some old horse gear and apply them to the thick deerskin so.. hopefully!  Here are some pictures of the beaver tail I hope to use! It's been pickled in citric acid with a degreaser.. I've shaved them down as thin as I dared.. no kevlar gloves here.. what I couldn't reach with the dakota fleshing wheel I tried to remove with my bench grinding stone, lol. I like my fingers a lot! I also had some commercial degreasers in there with it.