wet leather discoloration

[Adam Isrow]

Hey Guys,
Another question I hope you can help me out with. I've been building a few pouches recently. Sometimes (a lot lately) when i wet a piece of leather, for ease of sewing, when I'm done and it dries, I get a line of noticable discoloration where it was wet. What's up with that? And how do i fix or mitigate this? :hmm:

 

[Harold1950]

I do some amateur leatherwork myself, if you are wetting the leather in just the area that you are sewing, it leaves what you are describing, the water marks, I have better luck if I wet the entire piece of leather, that way there is no water spots or discoloration of the leather....hope this helps, works well for a small work piece but a large piece of wet leather is not that easy to manuver and work with.............have a good one.....gotta go to work...............Harold

 

[Birdman]

crowhammer after yer done sewing wet the whole thing down so the discoloration comes out even. I've aslo seen that when ya oil up the piece the color evens out for the most part.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Harold and Birdman are right, the only way to avoid the noticeable wet marks is to wet the entire piece I prefer to do it as Harold says, often, if done after you are finished, the earlier discoloration is still noticeable.

 

[Adam Isrow]

Thanks guys, will have to give give that a try. Seems logical in retrospect, wet the whole piece and it will discolor the same all over.

 

[rice1817]

I normally soak the entire piece in walnut dye pryor to the turning process so water marks or not they are hidden by the dye. Even if you don't dye it, immersion in water makes turning the leather much easier and once it dries any water marks are uniform and dissappear anyway.

 

[Stophel]

Just don't let the wet leather contact iron...you will end up with nasty blue-black spots (for the same reason you get blue streaks around nails in oak wood).

 

[crockett]

crowhammer: why are you wetting the leather? It seems using an awl ought to work ok. The other guys are right about the water marks, once in, hard to get out.