How do you make those digital and regular camo patterns?

I'd like to get a foliage green PRS stock to put onto a black rifle.
Can I dye it black over and over until it actually appears to be black
or will it be purple or some other weird color?

No problem going black.  Use the powdered Rit dye and add the whole package to your water.  Heat the water to just before a boil and keep it there (170-190)

I use electrical tape to mask.  I dye my lightest shades to darkest shades.  Each step I add more masks.   The shapes are all cut out of the electrical tape by hand with a swivel head craft knife.

So you put little tape squares all over the mag (or tape blobs) and then dipped the whole thing in a light color then repeated the process with a darker color and so on?



 

roger-o

How did you pick a pattern?  Did you just look at a pre-existing one or try to do it "randomly?"





 

a little bit of both.  I have used my imagination, a sample of the pattern from either a jacket or pants, and I have also used an image from my laptop.    Wife and kids spent some time down in the 'united' states for a death in the family so I had quite a bit of time on my hands.

tag again just in case

Is there any color change with any of the dyes on black polymer?

nope

What happens when you dip in green and then in brown?  Do the colors mix or does the darker color win out?  Because in the camo patterns that is what you do right?





 

Interesting.

Taggage for home to see pics

Glock 22 another late night project

i did my 12.5" SBR in Plum today.  its a very subtle dark purple that really comes out in sunlight (we get a lil' bit of that here in Phx....).

didn't have time to get pics before dark but i will post soon.

some lessons learned:
rinsing parts off immediately makes a huge difference.  i let a few sit for a few minutes and they basically turned black.
i died 2 pmags at the same time.  both were foliage green, one was an older mag and one was the newer RevM.  both done at same time, exact same length in the dye and removed & rinsed together.  and the RevM came out much darker.  had the same problem with 2 other RevM mags i did earlier...they are nearly black.   must be a slight diff in the plastic used?

Did that Glock start out black!?

+1 like the dark brown

No it was originally OD

pics of my Plum experiment
all furniture started as Foliage Green

in the shade (sunny day)


direct sunlight (yea, i know, i need to clean that grill....)


if I could go back I might go a touch lighter, but i'm pretty happy with the subtlety of it....indoors it basically looks black.  the color definitely comes out in sunlight though.

here is an interesting comparison of mags:


the 3 on the right were done earlier...left in the mix a few minutes longer and not rinsed off.  the 2nd and 3rd from left were done at identical times, but appear much different.  I guess the texture of the RevM mags takes a different hue than the slightly "glossier" texture of earlier Pmags....
also note on the far left mag that the feedlips were dirty from suppressed fire when i started, and didn't seem to take the pigment (i guess they'll still be foliage underneath if i clean it off?  not sure...)

Nothing special about what I did here, but didn't see anybody dyeing conversion mags so I figured I put these up here.
CMMG 22 conversion mags...gray w/ green follower other hardware.




Dyed Mags








With my Black Dog mags.




Not sure if it's just my imagination, but they feel "slicker" than before...especially the followers and their movement in the mag. Hmmm...I dunno. Definitely look better.









 
 

White LaRue Index clips



Also have a UDE Pmag that I am testing colors for.

haha.  "a rainbow of flavors"

Anymore updates?

Wonder if we could get Magpul to make white Pmags

I should be taking photos tonight of this last weekends endeavor.

do you do commissions? you could make a few arfcommers very happy

I could but it would be costly.  I just did 8 parts total and it took me 18 hours to complete it.  Hand cutting the designs and placing each piece as well as ensuring there is as little bleeding as posible is very labor intensive.  The dyeing itself is just watching hot water for 30 secs to 4 minutes.  But for someone who wanted to invest thier own time this is a very doable  project.  I think next I will see how the dye holds up to a stippling job.

that is some amazing work

It won't, the dye doesn't go deep enough; ref:

ha, just noticed the OP was edited.  Guess ...... that other site ......... is taboo(ish)

man that is nice

ok now someone do a flectarn AR and mags

Krink you are on deck.  Make it happen.

MTguns, how about a step-by-step tutorial of your procedure to get that awesome camo dye job?

Simply amazing!  +1 on the pictorial tutorial.

Tutorial is here

can you bump it so it gets out of the archives?

You could buy a membership, support this site





I have found several tricks to help with making the camo patterns.

1. plan out what you want. I often will draw the camo patten with colored pencils and paper first, listing what order I will do the dye steps.

2. I use electrical tape to mask with. I have found my best results are with Scotch brand professional '33' electrical tape. I have found in in black, blue, green, red, yellow, orange, clear, and white. (clear really didn't work for me)

3. Have a smooth cutting surface to cut the tape on. I use a srap piece of plexi glass. That allows me to place a sheet of graph paper behind it to use a reference lines.

4. Knives- new exacto blades are good. I even found a crafting swivel head razor knife at Michael's.

5. for the digital patterns I used graph paper (five squares per inch) to make templates. Then transfered them to cardstock. rotating my templates and flipping them over gave me many options for shapes.

6. When making masks that use more than one width of tape make sure to tape the seams of the two peices to avoid bleed through.

7. For lifting/positioning tools I have retired dental tools. (just visit you dentist and ask) They work good for ensuring the tape sticks in the inside corners.

8. When putting the electrical tape on your part ensure the tape is not pulled tight at all. The heat will cause it to shrink (relax) and it will cause all types of problems.

9. I preheat the oven at 170.  Place the taped parts in the oven before they go into the dye.  the part will be warm and the tape will be supple.  Do a final press of the tape onto your part before you dip.  This works really well for textured areas.

I have series of pictures for my digital that I can explain.

Water temp was maintained from 170-190 degrees
ratio of dye to water was 1/4 teaspoon per 4 cups


example of my masking stage. This was my first attempt at the digital pattern. You can see the squares are larger on the magazine vs the MOE stuff. That is the difference in using quad rulled (4 squares per inch) paper and the smaller 5 squares per in paper to make your stencils with.


Starting with a FDE plastic the blue tape covers up what will stay FDE. This will get dipped into brown rit. The 511 vest is used as a color match. I kept it close by to check my colors



Next came green tape. The Blue tape remains still protecting the original FDE. green tape will now save the brown-er color.


next is white tape keeping the previous blue and green in place. After the white is applied this will be the final dye for this set.


After each time I would rinse the part with clean water and towel dry, followed by blow drying. Any pieces of tape that let water in (normally at inside corners) I would use a paper towel and press out the water.

This is a great poor mans project. You can get awesome results with very little money.

Very cool thread. I'm impressed with how clean the lines are on some of these. I would have expected the tape lines to become fuzzy with hot water immersion.

How do the dye jobs wear?

The HK guys have been doing their USC and SL8s for quite some time.  I have thought of putting a flat clearcoat over my stuff for UV protection.  But I am not sure if that is needed or what product would be appropriate.

Some very impressive work in this thread (Couple here have some skills)!

You sir, have way more patience than I will ever have.  Great job.  David

One question. When you dye the magazines do you dye each component of the magazine such as the floor plate and dust cover one at a time or do you dye them all at the same time?

I dye them separated.  It makes the taping process easier.  I use my dust covers as test subjects to figure out dye times.

Has anybody tried sending some FDE into a tank with White RIT to see what results?  Could that then be re-dyed?

You have to dye darker.

absolutely awesome work!!!
I dont know that I have the patience but I think I might watch for some used fde/foliage MOE parts and give it a try