Using Antique Finish - Part II

In the last post, I told you about some of the basic preparations for antiquing a project. One thing that I did not say that you have to seal the pattern in order to antique the leather. The reason that the pattern on the leather is sealed is to keep it lighter than everything else is. I will mention again that I am very impressed with the quality of seal that I got with the acrylic sealer and I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting out. Those of you who have done the antiquing probably have your favorite methods figured out.

Once you have the leather sealed, have your antique finish either shaken or stirred thoroughly, have some rags nearby, and are wearing your gloves you are ready to begin. I like to use a piece of sheepskin to apply the antiquing to the leather. The photo below shows two pieces of sheepskin side by side. The piece on the left is untrimmed and the one on the right has the edges trimmed at close to a 45° degree angle. The angle that the sheepskin edges is trimmed does not matter. I think that it is important to trim the edges so that the solvent in the antique finish does not leach out onto the trailing fibers and leave a trail.

Untrimmed and trimmed sheepskin pieces

The pieces of sheepskin that you see above are approximately two-inches square. I would have used a larger piece if I had been able to cut it from the piece of scrap that I had. I believe that it is probably a good idea to use a larger piece of sheepskin when applying the antique finish to the project because it will probably help eliminate the possibility of streaking as previously mentioned. 

The photo below shows the trimmed piece of sheepskin loaded on one edge with the antique finish paste. This might look like a large amount to have, but you want to make sure that you have a little extra so that it will work into all of the cuts and the background. Having to go back and try to rub antique finish into an already worked area could cause streaking or blotching.

Sheepskin loaded on one edge with antique finish

A piece of sheepskin that is close to two inches square should work very well to apply antiquing if you are making a wallet or a belt. If I am making a belt, I like to load up my sheepskin with the paste and apply it by running the as far down the belt as I can. I am sure to leave excess antique finish in the areas where I apply it. I then go back and begin spreading it out and forcing it down into the knife cuts, the areas where I have used the stamps, and especially into the background. I use small circular motions to force the paste goes into all the nooks and crannies of the pattern.

Be very careful when working the antique finish into the recessed areas of the pattern. I used a product to seal the pattern one time and I evidently overworked it with the sheepskin because the carved edges of the flowers and leaves were stained. I had managed to rub the sealer off by using my normal techniques. This product was not a lacquer or an acrylic sealer to protect the pattern. I am sure that it was a good product but it did not work well for my with my antique applying techniques.

The photo below shows what you want your project to look like after you first finish applying the antique finish. It will look pretty ugly but that is not a problem. What you are seeing is the excess amount of the paste that was not worked into the pattern. You should not have any problems with leaving the paste to dry for a couple of minutes.

Project immediately after applying antique finish - before buffing

Do you remember the rag that I said is needed as a part of this project? Now is the time to use it to remove the excess antique finish from the surface of the pattern. When you get done it might look similar to the photo below. Again, use small circular motions to remove the excess paste from the pattern. Some people will leave the excess paste on the pattern for anywhere from an hour to twenty-four hours before wiping it off. I give the paste about five minutes after applying before I begin to wipe off the excess. I have done it this way for a lot of years and have had no real issues with it adhering to the leather.

One side of the rag used to wipe the antique finish off the project

It is important to allow the antique finish time to set up for a few hours on your project after initially wiping off the excess. I like to let it set overnight at least before applying a coat of finish sealer to the leather. What I like to do at least once during the period of time that the antique finish is setting up is to use a piece of sheepskin to rub off a little more of the excess and buff the antique finish to a shine. I have found that this seems to make the finish coat stick to the leather much better.

The photo below shows how much additional antique finish will come off when using a piece of sheepskin to buff it to a shine. Notice how much of the paste came off with the sheepskin. If you have antiqued a large project, it might be necessary to use more than one piece of sheepskin for the buffing process.

Leather project after wiping with rag and buffing with sheepskin

 It is possible that you will want to repeat buffing your project prior to applying the finish coat to your project. This will be evident if the unstamped portion of your project appears to have a dull appearance to it instead of a slight shine. The dull appearance indicates that there is even more buffing that needs to be done to remove the excess antique finish. Early in my leather working career I completed a couple of large projects and delivered them to my customer only to find out that the lacquer finish that I had applied was coming off the smooth areas. That happened before I knew about buffing the leather after wiping off the excess antique finish.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I did not apply any finish or seal coat to this project as of yet. If this had been a belt, I could have applied the finish after it had set overnight. If it were something that needed to have the edges laced I would have waited to put the finish coat on after the lacing was completed so it would be protected as well. With that being said, caution needs to be taken if a project is to be laced using a lace that is lighter colored than the antique finish. No matter what you do or how you do it, a portion of the setup antique finish will come off on the sheepskin as you are applying the finish coat. It is completely normal for this to happen and nothing has gone wrong.

The reason that I like to apply the finish coat or sealer to the project after completing the lacing is that it allows me to use a one-coat process. I like the one-coat process because it does not offer the chance of having excess sealer build up on the edges where the lacing is done. What can happen is that if the leather is finished before any lacing is done, an overlapping of finish onto the project areas next to the lacing will occur and it might show up quite prominently, creating a real eyesore.

I will post more on using the different finishers that I have on hand in the next post and I will try to have some more photo examples.

Have fun!

Using Antique Finish

In the last post, I put an old photograph of a photo album that I made for my parents. This photo shows what can be done when a project is “antiqued.” It is still one of my favorite ways of adding a little more character and patina to a project. The other thing is that it does not take a lot of it to go a long way and for the most part, it is a one-coat application.

In looking back at the photo of the album, it is hard to detect that I sealed the pattern with a lacquer finish to “resist” the antique finish. This is the time consuming part of antiquing a project because it is necessary to brush the seal or resist coat on the pattern. I feel it is necessary to put a second coat of sealer on the pattern to make sure that everything is completely coated. The photo below shows the pattern with just one coat.

Pattern sealed with one coat of acrylic sealer

If you can, look closely at the photo and you will notice that there is a bit of a dull shine on the pattern. This is only one coat of sealer. I used Fiebing’s Acrylic Resolene to seal the pattern. The first coat Resolene soaks into the leather and it possibly will seal the pattern well enough that one can safely apply the antique finish. However, I put the second coat on because I know that I may not have gotten a small section of the pattern covered.

It is worth the time and effort to put a second coat of sealer on the pattern. I did not try to leave an area of the pattern that was not coated with the Resolene. I did not try to leave a portion of the pattern uncoated because I probably would have covered it on the second coat of Resolene anyway. The photo below shows that pattern with a second coat of Resolene. Notice that the pattern has more of a shine with the second coat than with the first. That shine means that the first coat of Resolene is covered!

Pattern sealed with two coats of acrylic sealer

I mentioned that I used Resolene to seal the pattern on this little project. I am impressed with the way that it turned out. In the past, I have used leather lacquers such as Tandy’s NeatLac and Fiebing’s Lac Kote to seal the pattern. Incidentally, I just did a search for Fiebing’s Lac Kote and found nothing about it on the Fiebing Website. I cannot comment one way or the other on this matter. One thing that I will comment on though is that the odors are much less with the Resolene.

Impressed as I was with the Resolene, I have not used it to put a finish coat on a completed project. I will apply it to example piece that I just finished antiquing.  I will try to remember to post a photo of it after I have given it a good coat of the Resolene.

The photo shown below is a little out of focus and I apologize for that. It shows the top of the open jar of antique finish. This particular antique finish is a paste that require some preparations before using. If you look closely, you might notice some small lumps in the paste. I believe that the lumps are unmixed antique finish.

View of the top of the jar of antique finish

 I was in a hurry to get this little project finished so that I could post photographs of the process that I did not take the time to do the job right. I think that the lumps are in there because it is a brand new jar that I had kept in my garage/shop for over a year and it was exposed to a variety of temperatures. It was cool in my shop when I first opened the jar and began antiquing. I probably should have warmed up it up before I attempted to mix it up. I will try warming the jar up to at least 60-63 degrees before shaking it up.

The photo on the left just below this text shows the jar of antique finish prior to shaking. The dark spots are areas where the solvents or liquid portions of the paste have separated. The photo on the right shows the difference after the shaking the jar vigorously for a few minutes. Please let me reiterate, I had this jar of antique finish around for at least a year and it was not at room temperature but it did work very well. I do not recommend that you store your antique finish in this manner. You might not be as luck as I was this time.

                      

   Antique finish before shaking                              Antique finish after shaking

The next thing that one needs to think about when proceeding with antiquing the project is getting the sealer on the pattern. I realize that this might seem out of place now, but I have a bit of a method to my madness. The photo below shows the sealer in a small container, which makes it easier for dipping the brush. The brush shown is a good size for applying the sealer as long as care is taken not to go over the edges of the pattern. Going over the edges is like coloring outside of the lines. It does not look good when it happens. I do have a photo of what it looks like when going over the edges is done. I will include in a later post on antiquing your project.

Brush and cup with acrylic sealer

When applying the sealer to your pattern you will want to decide where you should begin. There are not hard and fast rules as to what part of the pattern you do first. Just try to remember what you have done and what you have not coated. Always work in a well-lit area so that you can more easily tell what you have or have not coated. You can load your brush pretty full if you start in the middle of a leaf. What I like to do is get a bit of a puddle in the middle of an area and then use it to dip my brush in to pull it to the outside edges of that area. I am very careful to keep my brush close to, but not going over the edge.

I like to wear gloves when I am ready to apply the antique finish to the leather project. I have been known to use plastic wrap instead of gloves, but that gets tricky trying to get the job done and not get the paste on your hands. In the beginning, I did not wear gloves because I did not have any and I was not concerned about getting it on my hands. It did not bother me to have the dark brown stains under my fingernails or have the skin on my thumb and fingers a little different color than the rest of my hand. Mind you, I did do my best to get the black out from under my fingernails with file, but the stains were there until they wore off.

I would recommend using either latex or nitrile disposable gloves for applying the antique finish. That way when you are finished you can toss them when you are finished with the project. The problem with using some rubber gloves repeatedly is that the antique finish will stay in the rubber and might cause staining where you do not want it. This would be especially bad if you had already sealed the whole pattern on your project. It would be almost impossible to remove the stain if the pattern had been sealed already. Any product that you would use to remove the stain would more than likely stain the leather where it was used. The photo below shows a pair of disposable nitrile gloves that I used to antique this project. I got them on sale and that is the only reason that I chose these over latex gloves.

Nitrile gloves

I will post more on antiquing a leather project within a few days. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions about what I am doing or have done. 

Have fun!