Well the Vinegaroon concoction I attempted to make and use was a fail. Not going to bother showing that. I think my solution was bad. I forgot in important step in the making, that is dewaxing the steel wool. Did you know steel wool comes waxed so that it doesn't rust? Now I do.
Anyway, I went with about eight or ten drops of black dye thinned into an oz and a half of IsoPalkyhol, and I got me a decent grey alright. Not bad. I learned me how to make gray, (which is apparently about difficulty level 8 on vegtan leather, according the leatherworker forum).
Hard to get dye this thin even, and there was some sort of a driftwoody effect with the original leather colour showing through. got a bit of the black fade from the edges happening, and I wiped the skulls a bit with black dye too.
Then, I dried it overnight, and in the sun for an hour this morning. Now we can all see those little bits inside the aces that didn't take the grey very well, still showing the original leather "pink." Well that was driving me a little crazy. So, I grabbed an old toothbrush, some "Antique paste" goop, (dabbled few drops of red dye into just to warm it up a bit) and proceeded to "antique" the middle zig-zag and all inside the Aces.
I'm not sure if I'm pleased or not, but it's kind of cool in it's own special way. I think once I neatsfoot it all up, everything will get a tad darker and blend real nice. Then I can finish it with a bit of a shine, should be just fine and more importantly ...saleable. The zig-zag is a bit more apparent in this photo than in real life. Brightened the photo a little bit so it stands out a bit more.
