What's the reason?

I'm seeing dye you mix with gas....

I'm CLEARLY a nub, is it required? why not paint,... or natural rust?

Why "dip" or "dye" them?

Old timers used to let them rust, lot of people still do.  If you are concerned about getting rid of the scent you can boil a pot of water and get a bunch of small  fresh cedar limbs and toss in the pot then dip your traps in there for a few mins.  Take out and hang up to air dry.  Seen my dad do this with his traps and he caught plenty of coyotes and raccoons with them.

You need to rust them up first, and then dye them.  

I just started trapping this year, decided to do it a week prior to the season opening.  I bought two traps and blued them, ended up buying more traps as the season went on.  I blued and or browned all of them, and just used them.  Now that they have a good coat of rust, I will dye them in logwood dye.  

I dont use that modern dip, but then Im using double long spring traps, some of them over 100 years old.....Logwood or even walunt dye is good enough for me.  

Now the folks over on trapperman say you dont need to dye them for water sets, just set them and catch stuff.  I did do just that on one trap, caught one very young beaver, and had the trap pulled out of the water by a coon that suffered a catastrophic amputation of one of its hands for its trouble......

So next year, they are all going to be blacked......

Thanks for the replys.

I guess I don't understand, why they couldn't just be shoot with a can of flat black or something and be done.

They are new victor coil traps and they almost look plated.

What's the homebrew method?

Is spray paint a bad idea?

spray paint does not cover up the metal smell that coyotes and foxes and smell.  paint also rubs off very easily.

i tried dying my traps, and cut corners and it didn't work.  i will have to try again later this year.  i am no expert, but trapperman.com's forums have lots of information.

My dad has trapped all of his life.  He has a large cast iron pot of paraffin.  He heats it over a fire until the paraffin melts, then dips the traps in it.  Results in a moderate coat of wax that prevents rust.  I believe he colored the wax with sumac berries.  It's kind of a dark purple/brown color.  He's into cable restraints to catch coyotes now.

This is how we do it.

We don't wax or dye conibears, surface rust is the best camo around here.

For footholds bring a big pot to boil and throw a bunch of walnut husks, hemlock bark or sumac horns in the mix and bring it to a simmer. Dunk the traps and let them sit in there for 5 minutes and then pull them out, they will be black. You can then wax them, we use a second pot to wax them so we don't get little pieces of junk in the wax.

It's important to rust new traps first, hang them outside for a month or two in the weather and let nature do it's thing. The oil will go away and you will get a nice surface rust. I know it goes against common sense to plop down money on new steel just to rust it, but without a decent coat of rust the dye won't hold.

Also remember to clean out the notch on the pan for the dog after waxing them, if not you will have a hell of a time in the field trying to set them.

A buddy of mine told me a story about dying and waxing his traps all at one shot.  They had a big pot of walnut dye, the pot was one of those that you could boil a jesuit in.  They had dyed numerous clothing articles and then threw in the traps.  then they put in a cake of beeswax.  The wax melted but stayed on top of the walnut water.  as they pulled the traps out of the pot they got a light coat of wax.  They then skimmed the wax off the top for reuse and dumped the spent dye.  

Here's how I used to do it:

To remove oil from new traps:  Boil in container of water with Borax.  You need a big container and an outside fire.  I used a cut down 55 gallon drum.

Hang them up outside and let them get light coating of rust.

Boil them again in logwood crystals or walnut hulls.  There's other dyes available now also.

Hang them and let them dry  They need to dry in order for the wax to adhere well..

To wax I'd do them one at a time in pot of meted wax (not boiling) over a camp stove.  You need to let them sit in there a minute or so to warm up so the wax sticks.

I tried the method discussed above of adding the wax to the dye bath and pulling the traps up through the wax.  The wax flaked off easily.  The method above is more labor intensive but the results are much better.

There are some good You Tube videos on dying and waxing traps.
Also some on making sets for different critters.

Ofcourse a light coat of rust is mandatory. When i buy new traps I would spray them with a mixture of water and vinegar to get them to rust faster, then rinse and dye.

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This is the processes of decontaminating traps. Boil them, dye them, and wax them. (for land trapping) You dont need to wax if water trapping, such as for beaver or muskrats or mink. The boiling in water removes any dirt and blood. Then you add dye which helps preserve the metal from rusting, and if canine trapping you want to wax them as well. Wax helps lock out any humor odor. Because no one likes to be out smarted by a yote or fox and find that your traps have been dug up because they can smell them.

ALL dying and waxing does is to protect the metal...that's it.

You will find tons of opinions on the matter, but the fact is dying and waxing traps will not make your sets any better or your harvests magically go up.

Dying traps inhibits rust from corroding the metal.

Waxing traps is just a added layer of protection from corrosion, BUT was also holds odors and if you are not really clean at how you handle your traps you can contaminate them  and when it comes to K-9's you need a very clean set-up.

When dealing with NEW traps you can do several things of your choosing, easiest, head over to the car wash and wash them using the rinse cycle to remove the manufacturing grease and oils, Or you can boil them in a large pot with a little detergent to accomplish the same thing.

Once they are free of oil and grease they are ready to use...nothing else is needed if you choose not to..

But keeping a odor scent free trap is the key to K9 and cat harvests.

Some people are in the school that the wax helps speed up the action of the trap also.

It is probably negligible however.

I do believe that people should dye and wax their land set traps though, since it makes them a lot easier to clean I think. Plus they look much nicer in the off season on the hooks if they are nice and black instead of pitted and rusty.