Choices to distress/darken my new whip. (With Pic)

[Fink]

Well, this is my new 12ft whip! I know is far from perfect and misses some important details for screen accuracy, but I guess is a close enough try except for the color, but I wouldn’t say its too bad if we consider this is a $25 US Dlls. 12ft whip, uh?

But now I want to go darker in the color, but I wish for that distressed look rather than just an ordinary dyed color. I know the best way to achieve this is getting the whip out to the wild and use it a lot. But I really don’t think I’m gonna be able to achieve this before May 22!

I’m already leaving the whip out to the sun all day, but it’s the beginning of rain season here and I’m feeling like I’m not getting anywhere, so what do you guys think I should do?

- Microwave: is a DON’T DO IT as far as I have read here. (Too bad, I was quite tempted to try this one since is temperature witch causes the tan rather than the mere sun light, right?)
- Leather treatments: could be the choice, but I fear to get some of it transferred to my pants. (I already got the best one I could get my hands on and still I think its quite dangerous for my clothes)
- Olive oil: seems to be quite a good choice for the looks, but then again I fear to end up whit my wardrobe soaked on olive oil and smelling like a fresh salad.

If getting a good screen accurate look is a priority here, but even more important for me is not to get any transferred stains to my clothes while carrying the whip around, what do you think my best choice is?

Thank you on advance for any tips or advice you can provide me! :idea:

[Swindiana]

Shoe cream (black), elbow grease, old T-shirt.

It works. Trust me.

Regards,
Swindiana

[Thousand Truths]

lol, smelling like a fresh salad...

[Fink]

UPDATE: I want to share this, a picture of my self darkened whip!

After reading a lot about this and receiving a couple of advices, in the end I decided to try something new, after all this is just a $25 bucks whip and I could get another one if I messed this one beyond repair.

So I tried dyeing the leather rather than “painting” it, but what I believe is new on my technique is that I decided to go creative and use India ink. :idea:

Since the basis of this ink is black carbon pigment thought it will be just perfect for a natural dye.

I believe I can’t complain about the final results, but you guys are the final judge:

[Captain Ron Solo]

What is India ink : I like the results you got. I would like to have tried that on my whip when it was new. I got some brown leather dye from a craft store, and it ended up turning my whip orange.


Fortunately, Gus was able to fix it for me.




Ron

[Fink]

Indian ink (or India ink in American English), also called Chinese ink, is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing, and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comics and comic strips, also can be used for home-made tattoos (sometimes called "stick and poke" or "prison" tattoos).

So, if it works for tattoos I figured out it could work to dye leather with distressed look on it. But I think the final work on your whip is amazing, that’s a bullwhip you can love, treasure and keep until the day you die! I only dared to play a little bit with mine and go creative since this is a really cheap whip, I would never dream to go so far on a whip like yours!

[Captain Ron Solo]

Fink,
Thanks for the compliments on the whip. I'm sure Gus will be pleased to read them. I certainly like it.
So, where does one get this ink? I was thinking about using black leather dye to get a darker brown out of my homemade holster (if I don't just buy one from Todd). Based on your results, this ink looks like it will do the job.

Ron

[Fink]

I’m not sure if this ink will successfully dye any kind of leather, but if you want to give it a try, I guess you might find this kind of ink wherever office supplies are available. I had my little bottle stored and forgotten since 1993, so it’s been a while since the last time I bought one, but a quick search lead me to find it online as “Drawing Ink” here:

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/5 ... awing-Ink/

I don’t know if that one is natural or synthetic, but the bottle look pretty close to the one I used. Mine was black too, but it’s a very mild ink that won’t dye immediately anything but paper. I used some of my girlfriends hand lotion (non-greasy) and dissolved the lotion with the ink, and then applied the mixture to the leather until I was happy with the result.

I’m sure the lotion wasn’t the reason of the color change since I first used the lotion alone and test it with out success, all the lotion was soaked by the leather and the external surface was dry and back to its original color very soon, but that’s when I realized I could actually use the lotion to get some kind of watery dye into the leather.

P.S. My girlfriend doesn’t know yet I used her fancy and expensive hand lotion: I’m a dead man walking...!

[Captain Ron Solo]

Thanks for the info. It's a great idea.

Ron