SUMMARY:


(My pics will be back up soon.)

Edit: 5-13-16.  Only pic I could find:

The dark orange was FDE dip in an entire solution of Rit Orange powder.  In real life it is almost burgundy, Yep, too much.

The more golden/brown/orange-y mags are also FDE but with a more measured application of orange lol.

Then two FDE mags for comparison. (the last two are foliage green.  terrible for color dyeing )

As of 2016 Magpul's "SAND" color is nearly white in reality.  Easier to get the color you want.



IMG_20160513_231453 by Dan Passaro, on Flickr







<Link Removed....................dpmmn>




Ingredients:

Rit Dye (Walmart bleach section [not crafts section], shoe shine area from my local Winn Dixie grocery store are the places I've found Rit Dye.)




FDE PMAG



Lessons learned:

Both amount of dye and amount of time factor into the color change so try to do everything at the same time.
I did one PMAG first and then the other the next day and was really, really, really close in a color match. I ended up leaving it in the solution about 30 seconds longer than I should have.
If you end up doing more later on, dip in increments until you get the match.


Bring water to a near boil instead of an actual boil.
My first PMAG tests were in boiling water and while there doesn't appear to be any actual function issues I figured it would be best not to push it lol.


FDE is the best host color to get the color you're looking for. Yellow rit dye on foliage green simply resulted in a darker, puke green.


Add dye to the water until you are just slightly darker than the color you're after.
The brick red PMAG is a result of adding the whole sunshine orange packet to 6 cups of water lol. The lighter, more orange PMAG was the second attempt using that little tip.


Use stainless steel pots and tongs for easy cleanup.




To be investigated:

Rit Dye is available in white. I'll be trying this out on FDE to lighten it up and then follow with orange/whatever to see what happens. Never found it.




Some pics showing the penetration of the dye:

It is just penetrating into the material. Just to clarify some heat is needed to help penetration.







======================================
ROUND 3

Looks like FDE is the best host color and Orange is better than Yellow for getting closest to orange.

There is a White Rit Dye but they didn't have any in stock. Here is a sample from Walmart. They're not in the crafts section (there is a different dye there but the employee said the Rit is superior) but in the bleach section.

I bought several colors this time for other stuff.

One day I'll try white and then follow up with orange/whatever















======================================
ROUND 2:

I got away from boiling and dipping. I got the water to almost boil and then took it off the stove. Just in case (ref: the plastic).

Just hot/hot water and let it sit for about 5-7 min. Again just in case lol.

This time I added powder until it became like orange bug juice.

Not enough in the result.

So a little more until it was closer to red bug juice.


Result:

Camera color balanced off an 18% gray card.





Conclusion:

I have another FDE PMAG and two FG PMAGs. Yellow RIT Dye tomorrow
















===================================

ROUND 1:

This was khaki with Sunshine Orange. So next time I'll do Yellow on Foliage PMAG

Boil water in SS pot, mix in one packet (or less), drop in parts for 5 min or less, while stirring with stainless tongs (ideally). The stainless cleans up easiest.

Remove and rinse under cold water for a bit.









Intersting factoid, reference: delrin.  Not a material I've seen used in polymer parts.  Just interesting

dupont pdf http://plastics.dupont.com/plastics/pdflit/americas/delrin/230323c.pdf

This is pretty amazing, I am planning on going a middle-shade brown on some of my stuff.  I wonder if anyone here has tried this on rubber ladder rail guards?
If so, did it turn out ok?

Thanks for the inspiration and tutorials guys.

aww.. ok thanks!

My latest stock.  I finished it early this morning.  Patterned after Belgium Jigsaw camo.  
I am going to hate to send this one away.  I think I want to keep it.

Very nice!  It really adds an "Euro" feel to the rifle.  I have been putting off doing my MSAR stock, but I may have to jump in on this.

Couldn't you just dye it after stippling it?

Edit for Quote Fail:
Originally Posted By MTguns:

......................... I think next I will see how the dye holds up to a stippling job.

Originally Posted By danpass
It won't, the dye doesn't go deep enough; ref:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Couldn't you just dye it after stippling it?

yes you could.  But only one color.  if you tried a pattern you would get uncontrolled blending

So, everyone else on this thread looks to have been having an awesome time doing this, and all of the patterns are coming out sharp and clear with little bleed under the tape. Maybe I'm wrong, but I couldn't find anything detailed about taping the magazines in order to get a pattern and instead of a decent tri-toned pmag I came out with a butt ugly pmag.

Here are some pics:




I was using a FG Pmag and attempted to do a FG, scarlet, and denim colored random camo pattern  with a magpul logo on the mag mag. Maybe not the best color choices but I only had 1 FG pmag (until the magpul fairy visits...) and those colors are just from some old RIT dye I had lying around. I'll be going to my nearest RIT dye emporium to pick up some more manly and effective colors later. When my new FG pmags do come in I'd like to do a better job at masking off the pmag so that I can get some better patterns. I used electrical tape, but in an attempt to keep it from sticking I stuck it to some wax paper and then cut out my patterns. Maybe this was a bad idea? I guess the wax could have lessend the adhesive of the tape...

Basically I need some advice. And my biggest problem was with taping off the pattern on the mag.

Thanks for introducing me to this awesome customization, I just need to do better than make my pmags look like rotten goat puke...

I was thinking about dyeing my foliage grip,afg, rvg, and back up sights black...

Any info, would this work?

Thanks

taking them to black should work fine

Going to black isn't an issue, I've dyed a few OD PMAGS Black & they've held up ok.
That old saying holds true though - once you go black...

You need better tape.

Try some 3M 471 Blue

tag



You guys are making me get creative

What do you guys recommend.
I have a bunch of Foliage & I am tying to get a mid/dark slate gray.

Am I nuts in thinking that just Pearl Gray will get me there?

I completed two projects tonight, both are destined to be Christmas presents.

Nice dye projects.. Lookin good..

Anybody got a recipe and directions on how to turn foliage green furniture into a charcoal gray color?

I have been back through all 9 pages here and can not find the post I saw earlier, where someone said they tried to dye an ergo soft grip?  If I recall they said it was a pain and took a long time, but I thought said they were (maybe were not ???) successful.  I tried myself to dye an FDE and a FOL to black (liquid not powder), jeez what a pia.  I never could get them beyond a dark grayish/blue color.... even with higher temps, still no luck.  Anyone recall the prior post on the ergo attempts, or tried themselves and were successful?  If so, pls share.

Thx Paul

ETA: NEVERMIND....... Got the answers I was looking for.  Thx to those that sent me the link to the other site.

If we could just get white (or just undyed) polymer items... I've asked both Magpul and Cav

Although I do like the "DUE" color in the middle of page 3.

I've been trying to figure out how to get that bright red you do there MTguns.  I only get the brick red with scarlet dye and the FDE mag.  I haven't found the cherry red die yet.



Very nice work BTW.



 

I am probably in the same boat as you irt access to supplies.  For the red I wanted to brighten it up so I added Fuchsia to the scarlet.  I am currently down south TDY so I don't have my notes to look at.  Hope this helps

Hope your getting thawed out anyway.  We just started to get cold again.



Thanks for the tip, I'll have to try it this weekend.

I am looking forward to pics of what you are doing.  I put some more thought into this and I think I used Cherry red and fuschia.  Both were powdered and my scarlet is in a bottle.  HTH

Just to clarify, you can use black as the host but you won't get the best results?

You can't use black

tag

sure he can .............................. but it will stay black

Color: Scarlet 5 (Only red I had on hand)
UDE, Black (not dyed), FDE

I can't view the pics in the tutorial, can that be fixed? I would really like to see the one of the stencils being applied. Thanks

 

Well I didn't notice if anyone had started a petition, so here goes. Never underestimate the power of enthusiastic customers and a polite well written petition. The contents of the petition are in this post below the link. I'm sure most think this would be helpful/cool/marketable. I'd be tempted to rock plain white. If you are interested in white, or the ability to dye other colors (pink, purple, yellow, whatever) Please sign. I posted here and the other Dye thread.

White Magpul Polymer Products Petition




Mock-up

IBTL

Just out of curiosity, where is your first link meant to go?

It got deleted.
Was there last night.
All the IBTL callers.

What would be the best color option to make some ACR Coyote color furniture out of some FDE gear do you guys reckon?

I was going to comment about carbon black reinforcements and why white isnt as easy as "not adding a dye" to get white pmags, but wikipedia FTW (note, when you read "rubber", you can also substitute "plastic")

Practically all rubber products where tensile and abrasion wear properties are crucial use carbon black, so they are black in color. Where physical properties are important but colors other than black are desired, such as white tennis shoes, precipitated or fumed silica has been used as a substitute for carbon black in reinforcing ability. Traditionally, silica fillers have worse abrasion wear properties, but the technology has gradually improved to where they can match carbon black abrasion performance [in some applications].

Since magpul is most likely more interested in physical properties, vice color, thats why you end up with the limited colors you have available.

From another Forum:
"Yes, dipping it in Ritdye Tan for 30 seconds will get it close to coyote brown. You may also try 15-20 seconds and see how you like it. Remember, you can always go darker, but not lighter. Do all your parts at the same time to keep the color consistant. Be careful with the smaller parts as they can be hard to grab with the hot water and tongs. Again, test it out on a Pmag or Pmag cover before doing your $100 stock set. This isn't an exact science, so give it a run or two before you do your final work. "

Anyone tried  This ?

I have used on soft plastic fishing lures (rubber worms) and it holds up pretty well

....

Just fooling around based on this thread.  I had a FDE MIAD set, Ranger plates and OD rail covers that I wanted to experiment with. Rather than go different patterns, I stuck with trying to do the gray using Pearl Gray.

MIAD grip before


MIAD grip after - 3 dips ~1 min - the color is a gray-green-brown (sort of)


Ranger plate (FDE and afterward) - note the dissimilar materials on the item producing different colors


OD rail covers (OD and afterward) - it seemed to just turn to a darker green


Conclusion: FDE as everyone else has learned is the best host.  I thought there may be a possibility of OD but no. Agree - need Magpul to do white products so we can have fun with RIT dye!

Taggage...

And a formula for pink:
2.2 parts Red
1.6 parts Green
1.7 parts Blue
2.5 parts Orange

Could use trimmed 45ACP casings as measuring cups:
2.2 parts Red    (45 case 2.2/2.5 = .88% or 0.790" long)
1.6 parts Green  (45 case 1.6/2/5 = .64% or 0.575" long
1.7 parts Blue   (45 case 1.7/2.5 = .68% or 0.611" long)
2.5 parts Orange (45 case uncut at 0.898" long)

That formula worked swimmingly.

ETA:

....

interesting

tag

interested in gray, brown, and white.

RBP,
Good work there!  I have wondered about the Larue FUG being a softer feeling plastic if it would take dye or not.  Looks like a FUG my be in my future.

Ref White Furniture Petition: WOW only 24 signatures in 10 days??? come on guys.... pull together and support.

Glad it worked out for you m118sb - looks good!

PS: I am jealous of your ACR

Hit it. I would love this.

Wow, I missed this thread.

I would love to build a black (metal) and red (plastics) AR

Any pics of this?  It would go great with my little girl's AR package I've been putting together for her...

Awesome projects guys! I would love to partake, but alas, all of my Evil Black Rifles are "Evil Black". So no fun for me right now.

There was a post earlier about an idea to put a clear coat after dying to protect it from UV and what not. Just an idea, but I use "303 Aerospace Protectant" for outdoor stuff like my Kayak, Life Vests, Yard Gear. Goes on like Armor All without the residue. Even works great to keep wiper blades from drying out. It says on the bottle:
"SPF40 for you STUFF".  Highly Recommended

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/autogeek_2144_9681140