I had a bar of 1.5" teflon at work and decided to make a forward handle for my new carbine upper I just bought. I brought it home tonight and put it in a pan of water mixed with Ritz fabric dye. I heated it up and let it sit for about 30 minutes and it didnt soak in at all. I did this same procedure about 5 years ago with plastic parts from an RC car and it worked great. I washed the handle with dishsoap before I soaked it. Anyone know of any other routes besides using paint or buying a new one?

Think about the chemical structure and binding nature of a dye. Now think about the structure of most halocarbons like Teflon. Understand why it won't work now?

I know very little about plastics but I had imagined teflon had a tight matrix stucture(pulling words out of my ass). I know it resists heat until about 500 deg.F. I originally bought it to make a rear oil seal for my supercharger but found custom seal maker. I thought it would be perfect for a float tube handle.

Remember that Teflon is  fluro-chlorocarbon. This type of molecule tends to be tightly bound
with a very even distribution of charge (dipole moment). The only way to rapidly dissociate/decompose this type of molecule is by either high energy radiation, like you would find in the upper atmosphere in the case of, say, freon being decomposed and rapidly reformed leading to destruction of the ozone layer, or by using a non-polar solvent and the right reactants. Wow! That was almost a run-on sentence. Anyway, teflon will resist a dye.

Dyes work by having semi-stable strongly charged, usually double bonded, moieties which react easily with carbon or nitrogen. That is why you can't dye steel. Iron will react to form a salt, but will then flake away without making a firmly bonded patina.

Plastic has a polymer backbone whcih remains unchanged provided the dye only reacts with side chains or reacts to bond in such a way that the backbone is unchanged, or that only a thin layer of molecules of the surface facing the air is changed. Is that a little clearer?

Yes it is a little clearer now. IM tinking a thin coat of flat black and bicycle innertube stretched over it. I cant back out now! [:D]

I belive one of the only things that will bond to teflon is teflon under normal conditions.

It certainly can be made to bond metals. Look at a frying pan.

Try roughing the surface with a fine grit sandpaper and using spray glue. I doubt it will work well. Avoid inhaling the dust. Teflon is a carcinogen. You really shouldn't cook with it either.

I belive the teflon to frying pan is not done under "normal conditions" I belive metal has to be treated first.

Ya might try truck bed liner spray. Make absolutely sure the teflon is squeeky clean. Ya also want to roughen it up a bit. Hold the can 'bout 10" from the object.

I've sprayed some FAL grips that came out great!

The non-stick coating of a frying pan is not bonded directly to the metal.  There is an intermediate layer (maybe two) of another polymer that bonds to both but would not make a good cooking surface by itself.

I ended up buying some flat black automotive paint and Im very surprised how well it worked. I can scratch it with my fingernail and it doesnt mark up. We'll see how long that lasts!
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