Club Obi Wan

I seem to have had some success in altering the color of my Alden’s recently.

Ever since I first got them about two and a half years ago, I’ve never been totally pleased with the reddish tint of the leather. First I tried to darken them with multiple treatments of Pecards. Then I let them get scuffed through daily use. Finally, I resorted to sanding them with fine sandpaper in order to achieve that weathered look we’re all so fond of. But even after that the red devils refused to die. So now I’ve started using brown shoe polish to color them the way I want.

I must now say that it was a success. The polish soaked in very well—especially in the areas with the most scuffing. After about six coats, I applied Pecards lotion to seal in the polish and darken the boots even more. Now my Alden’s are almost as dark as my distressed Wested—they still have a slight reddish hue to them, but now it’s more of dark reddish brown as opposed to a pumpkin.

All in all I’m quite happy with the way they turned out, and was wondering if anyone else has had much success dying their Alden’s?

Any pics for a fellow Canadian?
Janice

All you really had to do was ask. Many of of us have gotten rid of the wonderful pumpkin orange color by simple using the proper treatment early on.



Left: When they were first redyed Right: After a summers worth of yard work.

I just went ahead and redyed them using Fiebings Leather Dye and got the above results (as others have done as well).

Dalexs

Dalexs,

great lookin set of boots ya got there! I only hope my Deckers look that good eventually. thanks for posting the pics, it gives some of us something to aim for. Good on ya.

hear hear. nice looking aldens there.

Is there a certain "technique" or "formula" for this? My pumpkin Aldens should be arriving today .
Janice

1) Pay about $25.00 for a professional shoe guy to do it.

2) If you're too cheap (like me) I bought some dark brown Fiebings Leather dye (liquid) and applied to clean boots.
This can be found in most leather supply stores and usually in
shoe repair shops.

If you do it yourself, DON'T pecard or treat the shoes first. The dye needs to soak into the leater and leather treatments prevent this.

Get some leather deglazer as well (or acetone) and give the boots a good rubdown. This takes off the upper layer of sealant thats on the leather.

Wear gloves! Don't wear shoes for a few days. You WILL achieve a new brown sock look you may not like!

For my Aldens, I found that using the Russet color worked better because it helped counter the orangy color better. It doesn't have as much red content in it.

But the others have used the regular Dark Brown dye with no problem.

Hope this helps.

Dalexs

PS you may want to search the forum for aldens, redyed and see what results come up for any other info.

Nice pics and thanks for the other info. My boots look rather like those posted above. I'm trying to get my hands on a digital camera so I can post some pictures of my own. I'm happy with how my boots look now--I only wish I would've done the treatment sooner.

Paying someone sounds like a good idea. Then I have someone else to blame if something goes wrong

I will have a peek for the dye to do it myself first though.

Janice