zero7one
11 June 2012, 01:39
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8008/7360885014_7dbe6e5b28_b.jpg
I recently bought a digital subscription to Recoil Magazine (http://www.recoilweb.com/). While reading one of the articles in the 2nd Edition I came across an article on dying polymer. This intrigued me since we recently spray painted some Magpul PMAGs at our range so we could identify them as belonging to our range. Unfortunately, the paint wears off after awhile and I wondered if there was any other options out there.
I won't go into what the process is exactly verbatim, since the credit goes to the Recoil Magazine staff member(s) who wrote the article. One key point in dying polymer is that you cannot make the color lighter than it already is. For example, you cannot make black into yellow, but you can make tan turn into red...and that was my goal.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8015/7360883650_4525c62628_b.jpg
I picked up a bottle of Liquid Rit Dye (http://www.ritdye.com) in the color Scarlet, since that was the only shade of red that I could find. It appears that on their webpage they have about 25 different colors available in liquid form and 25 colors in powder form, some of which are the same as the liquid form. They do have cherry red available, but not at the store I was shopping at.
The down and dirty of how I made my tan PMAG red (or a close shade of red) is the following:
1. Disassemble PMAG. The only pieces of the PMAG that seemed to take the dye were the body and the floor plate.
2. Heat 6 cups of water in a large pot until it was approximately 150-175 degrees. This was about the 8 setting on my stove.
3. Add 1 teaspoon (tsp) of dye to water and stir.
4. Gently lower PMAG into water/dye solution. You can throw it in, but you will be cleaning the dye up off of your stove.
5. Set timer for 5 minutes.
6. Once timer goes off, remove PMAG from water with a pair of tongs.
7. Dry off PMAG and reassemble.
8. And you are done.
Total time to complete was about 10 minutes.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8025/7175660433_d6db76768f_b.jpg
There are several other techniques that you can read about in the article, but if you just want to dye your PMAG or other Polymer item a different color, this is just the basics.
***WARNING: Different colors will take different amounts of dye and different lengths of time in the dye solution. You will probably have to experiment a little, so do so on something that you are willing to part with if it does not work before you throw in an expensive part.
If you decide to try this out, take a photo of what you did and post it here. I'd love to see what else you guys can come up with!
I recently bought a digital subscription to Recoil Magazine (http://www.recoilweb.com/). While reading one of the articles in the 2nd Edition I came across an article on dying polymer. This intrigued me since we recently spray painted some Magpul PMAGs at our range so we could identify them as belonging to our range. Unfortunately, the paint wears off after awhile and I wondered if there was any other options out there.
I won't go into what the process is exactly verbatim, since the credit goes to the Recoil Magazine staff member(s) who wrote the article. One key point in dying polymer is that you cannot make the color lighter than it already is. For example, you cannot make black into yellow, but you can make tan turn into red...and that was my goal.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8015/7360883650_4525c62628_b.jpg
I picked up a bottle of Liquid Rit Dye (http://www.ritdye.com) in the color Scarlet, since that was the only shade of red that I could find. It appears that on their webpage they have about 25 different colors available in liquid form and 25 colors in powder form, some of which are the same as the liquid form. They do have cherry red available, but not at the store I was shopping at.
The down and dirty of how I made my tan PMAG red (or a close shade of red) is the following:
1. Disassemble PMAG. The only pieces of the PMAG that seemed to take the dye were the body and the floor plate.
2. Heat 6 cups of water in a large pot until it was approximately 150-175 degrees. This was about the 8 setting on my stove.
3. Add 1 teaspoon (tsp) of dye to water and stir.
4. Gently lower PMAG into water/dye solution. You can throw it in, but you will be cleaning the dye up off of your stove.
5. Set timer for 5 minutes.
6. Once timer goes off, remove PMAG from water with a pair of tongs.
7. Dry off PMAG and reassemble.
8. And you are done.
Total time to complete was about 10 minutes.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8025/7175660433_d6db76768f_b.jpg
There are several other techniques that you can read about in the article, but if you just want to dye your PMAG or other Polymer item a different color, this is just the basics.
***WARNING: Different colors will take different amounts of dye and different lengths of time in the dye solution. You will probably have to experiment a little, so do so on something that you are willing to part with if it does not work before you throw in an expensive part.
If you decide to try this out, take a photo of what you did and post it here. I'd love to see what else you guys can come up with!