I really thought that we had a decent Rit Dye thread on here but it looks like everything has been moved to the archives. Since that's the case, I thought I would share my latest Rit Dye job:

I took a spare LaRue UDE Magpul CTR, MIAD grip, and two magazines and dyed them to a true brown. I'm actually really happy with the color and how well dark brown liquid Rit Dye works on the UDE as base color. While the light on my iPhone doesn't do it justice, the UDE is a bit grayer than FDE and to me, is too close to ACU in color. I'm definitely a bigger fan of this new brown versus the lighter UDE.

Before:



After:



On a FDE rifle:

I like it

I'm not familiar with the process. What is it?

Thanks OT.



Tank, you can dye lighter Magpul colors by mixing Rite Dye (bought at Wal-Mart or online), in a pot of simmering water. You mix in the dye you want to use and then put in the object your dying for as long as it takes to get the depth of color you want. For instance, this brown took 6 minutes. At 3 minutes it was pretty light colored and at 5 minutes it was just a tad lighter than this. Check out the videos below, Magpul is releasing a new M3 "Sand" magazine that's color is lighter because of the construction of the polymer. One of the byproduct of the lighter color is that it will make an excellent base layer for dying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9PF6PtFP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q13nW4JcRM

It's worth noting that the dye job is pretty resilient as the dye permeates a few milometers deep into the polymer. On other stuff I've dye I've had pretty deep nicks and gougers that are stilled dyed.

I'm currently doing the same w/ Magpul FDE parts.....

Before: just washed in a degreasing liquid soap.

                   


 After: Doing a stove, hot water dip in Rit Dye Dark Brown using 1/3 the dye after 3 dip and rinse cycles.

                 


The santoprene ladder rail covers proved to be tougher... I doubled the Dark Brown dye mix and added an equal mix of black and then let the covers soaked for 10 minutes to get them to this shade.
 The shorter ladder is the fde as from factory the full lengths are the Rit Dye examples, they matched up to the MOE grip dead on.

                   

Nice!

I'm surprised you were able to get the ladders to take the dye. I've tried with poor results to get rubber to dye (MOE+, Aimpoint rubber covers, etc)

        Me too! They just didn't take the dye using just the dark brown per the instructions so, I doubled up on the brown and just kept adding black until it was equal parts black to brown and then just soaked the ladders , checking them for color after 5 minutes... the color finally matched after a 10 minute dip total time.

       I'll be doing a fde CTR stock next for the clone I'm doing and hope to have the whole Magpul kit matched up to throw onto it.

Does the color stay on the plastic,  or does some of it come off with sweat (salt) & abrasion from use ?

The dye permeates into the material and so far from the other dips I've done, sweat doesn't affect the color and as for scratches/ gouges it would take a good scratch or gouge to get past the dye.

Solid job fastfoot. The ladders look good too. Being rubber, those take a pretty persistent dye job and a lot of tinkering.

This week I'm going to dye a ACS-L, a MOE grip and some M-LOK type 2 covers for a FDE .308 rifle. I'm pretty stoked to see how they turn out.

I was more worried about the dye rubbing off on my hands & then onto every where else I touch (clothes, walls, My Face).
But it sounds like it stays locked into the plastic.
Thanks & Nice Work Guys, Keep it up.

No worries about it staining anything. Just put it on a shop towel when you pull it out of the dye water. Once it dries, you won't have any issues. I've had Magpul gear dyed for years now and have never had any issues with it.