homemade leather die?

[timbermoose]

what's your recipe? would rather start dieing it myself since i have several cow hides waiting to be tanned. used to send them in and have them do it. but would rather have the option to do it myself. so if you have any recipes, i'd love to get a few.

[fujimo]

i believe osage makes a nice brown ish dye.
my wife is an artist and they used coffe, or tea.
rhubarb for red, grapes and beetroot for purple, to dye fabrics.- you gonna have to find a "fixative" to fix the dye, so it stays.
remember all these dyes give a kinda washed down effect, you may have to concentrate the dye(reduce it) to get stronger colours

[LittleBen]

flower pollen can make dye, like pollen from lillies will make a yellow/orange dye.

I believe you can use vinegar to help fix a dye ... don't take my word on it though.

[halfseminole]

I use black walnuts.  Near impossible to take it off anything.

[Sharpend60]

Check out "ebonizing"
Something like...

Oak bark and a lump of steel wool plus some vinegar.
The iron and acid react with the tannins making it black, black, black.

[monterey]

For very dark gray to black I use ferric nitrate crystals in water.  Same formula as used to stain maple.