Leather Holster

[Aragorn243]

This is either a French or Portuguese 1907 Savage holster. Originally they were brown. The French post WWI dyed many of them black for police service. I believe this one was first dyed black and later painted gloss black.

I hated the gloss black paint so removed it. I know nothing about dying leather. Should I just seal it with conditioner as is, dye it brown or dye it black? Will the brown look decent with all the variations in color? What type dye, water based sounds the least harmful for the leather and it's only going to be displayed, not used.

[Flying10uk]

I think that you will have to try and get more of the black out of the leather before doing anything else to it. Un-dyed leather or leather that has had the colour removed is "supposed" to be a light fawn colour.

Personally I only use acrylic based leather dyes, mostly for dying wood.

[Aragorn243]

Any suggestions on doing that?

I would like to use aresol citristrip on it but I can't currently locate any. I might be able to get some the next time I hit the big city but locally, we have none.

[Flying10uk]

Any suggestions on doing that?

I would just use one of the "leather cleaners" that are marketed for removing the colour from leather and you may have to repeat it. Obviously it's a cleaner that removes colour/dye from leather that you need, not just a standard leather cleaner.

[Aragorn243]

For living in Amish country, I'm having a lot of trouble finding leather care products around here which I find surprising. I was able to locate the spray citristirp today and I put two coats of that on it and the black is dripping out immediately. As it's still wet, no idea what color it will be when it dries but hopefully more uniform and less black.

[browningautorifle]

I think that you will have to try and get more of the black out of the leather before doing anything else to it. Un-dyed leather or leather that has had the colour removed is "supposed" to be a light fawn colour.

Exactly, paint soaks into things, think of painting plywood. It'll be flat brown after, or whatever color it started before paint. Then dye to taste.

[Aragorn243]

Two treatments of citristrip and it was still a mottled brown black. Went to several different places to get dye today and all I could find was oil based which I didn't want to use so I just decided to try treating it with leather conditioner and it turned it black anyway so good thing I didn't find dye. I'll put a few coats on it and try to get a little shine but I like it a lot better than the high gloss paint. I wish it were brown but you can't always get what you want. It at least looks very consistent with my other WWI holsters.

[Flying10uk]

The WW1 1907 scabbards were supposedly all brown originally and there's no way they're going back to brown from whatever they were dyed black with.

[Low & Slow]

treating it with leather conditioner and it turned it black

Figured it would turn the light parts darker, but certainly more uniform. Much better than that shiny black paint.