Project Blog - Historic Sporrans / Brass Cantle Project

**artificer** · 5th October 10, 07:24 AM

A quick materials update:

It's well known among those who work leather that black dye is something of a frustration.
Surface dyes (paints) are unpleasant, as when scratched they reveal the tan base colour underneath.

Spirit dyes (alcohol based) give some penetration, but can yield an uneven finish, can 'blue', and sometimes needs a pre-dye to give you a nice rich colour.

Oil dyes are messy and have some VOC issues, but have, until now yielded the best result I could find.

All of that changed this morning...

For the last few weeks I've been prepping a batch of Vinegaroon. It's a VERY old, traditional way to dye leather black.

To prepare the solution you first take a quart of vinegar and heat it to near boiling. Then in go a given amount of iron filings (alternately, steel wool). The stuff is left to sit until the iron is dissolved into the vinegar. As this happens, the solution darkens in colour to near black.

Should anyone attempt this at home, make sure to NOT seal the cap on your jar tightly, as some gasses are generated during the chemical process, and containers have been known to 'pop' from the pressure built up.

When finished and applied to veg tanned leather, the solution reacts to the tannins in the hide that were used to tan and stabilize it. The result is nearly instantaneous and quite amazing.

My solution was finally ready this morning, and I gave it a test on some veg tanned scraps I had about. As soon as the solution touched the surface, a bloom of nice dark black appeared. I swabbed the whole piece and within seconds it was jet black.

After the piece is blackened, you give it a dip in water and baking soda to stop any further acidic reaction.

It's AMAZING that more people don't use this method of dyeing! There's no cleanup, nothing toxic, and the colour is at least as good as I can get from oil dye, while yielding a more historic, authentic result.

As a bonus, the colour can penetrate as deeply as you wish- struck through entirely, if you soak the pieces in your vinegaroon.

I cannot be more excited about this result, all the better that it's an historically accurate way to dye black, which will look fantastic on the cantles of the horsehair sporrans.

**Ryan Ross** · 5th October 10, 07:34 AM

HaHA! That's brilliant! Nicely done, Scott!

Can't wait to see how these things come together, and the effect of this interesting coloring process.

**Drac** · 5th October 10, 07:41 AM

I've used that "dye" in my early attempts at sheath making. You get a grey based black (vs blue of commercial dyes) that can be light some times but always a black.

Main problem I had with it was the smell. Once the mix cures it has a nasty smell and it takes a while for it to fade from the leather. BTW you can also just soak steel wool in vinegar for the same results.

Another good old fashion dye is walnut husks. If you google it you will get a couple good recipes for a very nice brown dye.

Jim

**artificer** · 5th October 10, 07:54 AM

Originally Posted by Drac

I've used that "dye" in my early attempts at sheath making. You get a grey based black (vs blue of commercial dyes) that can be light some times but always a black.

Main problem I had with it was the smell. Once the mix cures it has a nasty smell and it takes a while for it to fade from the leather. BTW you can also just soak steel wool in vinegar for the same results.

Another good old fashion dye is walnut husks. If you google it you will get a couple good recipes for a very nice brown dye.

Jim

Hi Jim, I don't know if you tried this, but the intensity of the black can actually be boosted by giving your leather a dunk in strong black tea (thereby increasing the tannins).

The smell is strange. It's an odd chemical smell, heavily tinged with iron. In someways reminiscent of a LOT of blood being exposed to the air.

Heating the vinegar just speeds the reaction along for those of us who live in cooler climates

And good call on the walnut husks, I'm actually starting some experiments on that right now (since the nuts are coming off the trees up here already) looking for a nice historic brown dye.

**triforme** · 5th October 10, 08:10 AM

FYIW, it also works on oak and other tannin-bearing woods. The monastery I used to live is mostly furnished in furniture they made of their local oak stained black in this manner. For woods that don't have enough tannin, they will sometimes pre-treat the wood with a tannin tea and then the vinegar/iron filings (or steel wool) mixture.

The photo on the opening page here is an example: http://www.sjawood.org/

**English Bloke** · 5th October 10, 08:35 AM

Could I ask that our moderating team please put a sticky on this thread so we can find it easily. I've a feeling this will be a very popular topic. Tremendous subject Scott, I'll be following this with great interest.

**artificer** · 5th October 10, 08:36 PM

A very quick update:

I just got back from a meeting with my metal smith to solidify a few points on the mechanical drawings.

With luck we'll have the master cut by next week, and a final quote from his foundry before that.

Based on his expert guess, everything is a go for the two cantle types outlined in my initial post. The 'soft quote' per-unit will allow me to purchase a short run, at least.

The one down-side may be that depending on the flask size (great big box of pressure-pounded sand) used, we may or may not be able to have room for the ornate Victorian cantle I've been hoping would be the third option.

The good news is that I have the facilities to pewter cast these in my home shop. This I may do along with a very limited run of some of the MacLeay 'Historic Cantles'. Some of those shapes are so unusual I'm actually haunted by them, having never seen their ilk in pix or in person.

**ThistleDown** · 5th October 10, 09:02 PM

Just one more post, Scott, and I'll be printing the whole lot for addition to my shop bookcase. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to educate us all.