Coach Rehab and Rescue Club
- Thread starter greenpixie
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It just needs polishing. If you have some fine steel wool, you can use that. I recently tried Mother's polish which was recommended on this thread and I really like it.
I just bought this bag a month ago and was just so bored with black I refinished it green. It was too bright at first but I think I ended up getting the color pretty close. It's a hard color to find so I decided to just do it myself
I used a mixture of angelus paint and the too thin thinner and added a bit of distilled water at the end. It gives a bit longer dry time so you can really get it perfect before it dries. Making sure you let it dry thoroughly and using thin coats is really important if you dont want it to look "redone"
This looks amazing! Did you change the suede color too or is it black inside?
I got some of the green on the inside by being clumsy so I'm just going to clean it off when I polish the hard wate. There isn't any reliable way to change that so it looks ok imho.
The recolored bag looks great. Did it change the texture or feel of leather?
I tried dip dye with Rit a while ago. The raw suede sides were dyed perfect, but due to factory finish the smooth leather side didn't take color evenly.
I think a 3 steps dye process will work.
Step one : dip dye with Rit fabric dye for at least 8 hrs.
Step two: thoroughly clean to get rid of excess dye color. Then shape and dry.
Step three: surface recolor with matching color ( leather paint or leather dye) on smooth leather.
Attached are my dip dyed bags. I like the result of interior, as you can see the exterior color is not even. I am ok with that, fear if I recolor the leather, it may change the appearance and feel of leather. I need to start practicing the one stroke painting again, someday I will hand paint the purple and pink bags with garden themed flowers.
(All 3 were originally off white color)
What if you used regular smooth leather dye on the outside, over the rit dye? I don’t know how leather paint will be in changing texture, but I just dyed a bag for the first time and the outside looks decent but the inside suede looks terrible because it was so uneven (I ran out of suede dye, it was soaking it up so quickly before I could spread it). Your inside looks great. I want to try this next time! (Well... if there is a next time, haha!) I didn’t notice the texture of the leather changing for me.
Edit to ask: how did you prep your bags for rit dye?
Edit to add: OR maybe I should try dying my current bag in rit dye, to take care of the inside! It would be opposite of you.
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They were dunked with soap and conditioned with cpr a couple times before I decided to dye them. One day when I was in a local leather shop looking for leather dyes, another customer in the shop told me to use Amonia to prepare the leather surface. So that was what I use, dip a cloth with Amonia and gently scrub the entire smooth leather area. Then briefly dunked the bag with soap water and rinse. Finally took the bag out of sink water, go straight to dye bucket.
(Couldn't find the dye color I want from leather shop, end up with using Rit)
I remember your posting here about the dyed Christie. I am positive it will work.
Especially after Rit dye, the bag color is already close. The suede is the actual color of dye, the outside has variation of lighter shade. Th leather dye on the surface will be the same as suede, so will be darker, can definitely even out the color.
I will dig out your post from past and reread it.
ETA: yes, the inside looks like factory finished color. And Rit didn't change the texture or feel of leather.
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That wasn’t me! That was @artax two but I happened to be inspired to dye my own bag for the first time (a classic shoulder pouch) after seeing hers as well as @MrsGAM ‘s purple devon.
I just ordered some purple dye for a failed rehab!
What was the original color? Rit dye color only true if the original color is white or off white. For example, I used Scarlet Red (similiar to the red Madison Royalton) on a British Tan Casey, the result color is like Rust.
ETA: IRL more rust less red than picture.
It was maybe tabac (I couldn’t really tell) and I dyed it with angelus leather dye “wine tone”. I see about the RIT interacting with the original color, will keep that in mind.