burntneuron
Birdie Member
I've always seen Jacquard iDye Poly next to the RIT at craft stores and been curious about it. My girlfriend recently used the iDye for natural fibers to dye some white denim for making knife rolls and had vary good results with it. She had also picked up a packet of the iDye poly Black to see if it would work on discs. The first test last night was a success and it seems we may have found a readily available replacement for RIT dye.
The package contains a sealed water soluble packet of dye and a color intensifier that I did not use in the first test, unsure of exactly what it contained. I emailed Jacquard to find out more info last night and asked about a color chart and if they planned to release any other colors in the Poly line of dyes. They responded quickly this is what I was told:
I think the intensifier being a carrier would just lead to a more fuzzing and bleeding over time if it leads to deeper penetration of the plastic, but I don't think it would be harmful to the disc or stencil. Could also be useful for dyeing lower grade plastics like Zero, DX, and pro d, but only testing will tell. If anyone has a good chemistry background, the MSDS for the intensifier will probably provide some clues.
The Good: Much higher quality than RIT, being a specialized dye and not general purpose like RIT it does not contain salt which is needed for natural fibers. The dye comes in a sealed packet that dissolves in water which makes things much easier to work with and no dye powder flying around to get on your fingers or make a mess with. A little extra stirring and hunting to make sure it's completely dissolved, but iDye seems thicker and completely dissolves much quicker and more thoroughly than RIT powder. It says to let it simmer for 30 minutes, but about 10 minutes sitting just below a simmer produced a good dye bath in 32oz of water.
As for the dyeing, there were 2 dips, the first for ~5 minutes and a second for 2, total time in the dye about 7 minutes. It took very quickly and evenly, and seems more vibrant a black on this first test. Compared to the purple undertones in RIT's black, iDye is more on the blue side although not nearly as noticeable. For a thin champion disc, it looks much more black than the results I've seen from RIT's black on similar plastic. Curious to see how it turns out on a white disc.
The Bad: I tired some of the regular red she used for dyeing the denim on a white star disc and it didn't take at all, so make sure to get the iDye Poly, the regular iDye does not work.
Slightly more expensive at $3.59 vs. $2.49 for powdered RIT, but same price as liquid RIT. It's also easily available in bulk from jacquard. The only downside is they currently only make iDye poly in 8 colors: Black, Brown, Green, Blue, Violet, Red, Orange, Yellow. While mixing is possible, they don't currently offer a color chart like RIT to help out and I'm not sure some colors could be made like fuchsia, lighter shades of blue, and greys. But they do have most of base colors most commonly used, and maybe with enough demand from us they'll put out more.
More testing and experimenting with different colors, different plastics, and different dyeing methods needs to be done. It looks to be a good replacement so far, especially for black and it should be easy to find at most big craft stores. I'll keep updates coming as we experiment and hopefully some others will try it out so we can get a good consensus on this dye which seems to be a much higher quality and see what methods work.
The package contains a sealed water soluble packet of dye and a color intensifier that I did not use in the first test, unsure of exactly what it contained. I emailed Jacquard to find out more info last night and asked about a color chart and if they planned to release any other colors in the Poly line of dyes. They responded quickly this is what I was told:
I think the intensifier being a carrier would just lead to a more fuzzing and bleeding over time if it leads to deeper penetration of the plastic, but I don't think it would be harmful to the disc or stencil. Could also be useful for dyeing lower grade plastics like Zero, DX, and pro d, but only testing will tell. If anyone has a good chemistry background, the MSDS for the intensifier will probably provide some clues.
The Good: Much higher quality than RIT, being a specialized dye and not general purpose like RIT it does not contain salt which is needed for natural fibers. The dye comes in a sealed packet that dissolves in water which makes things much easier to work with and no dye powder flying around to get on your fingers or make a mess with. A little extra stirring and hunting to make sure it's completely dissolved, but iDye seems thicker and completely dissolves much quicker and more thoroughly than RIT powder. It says to let it simmer for 30 minutes, but about 10 minutes sitting just below a simmer produced a good dye bath in 32oz of water.
As for the dyeing, there were 2 dips, the first for ~5 minutes and a second for 2, total time in the dye about 7 minutes. It took very quickly and evenly, and seems more vibrant a black on this first test. Compared to the purple undertones in RIT's black, iDye is more on the blue side although not nearly as noticeable. For a thin champion disc, it looks much more black than the results I've seen from RIT's black on similar plastic. Curious to see how it turns out on a white disc.
The Bad: I tired some of the regular red she used for dyeing the denim on a white star disc and it didn't take at all, so make sure to get the iDye Poly, the regular iDye does not work.
Slightly more expensive at $3.59 vs. $2.49 for powdered RIT, but same price as liquid RIT. It's also easily available in bulk from jacquard. The only downside is they currently only make iDye poly in 8 colors: Black, Brown, Green, Blue, Violet, Red, Orange, Yellow. While mixing is possible, they don't currently offer a color chart like RIT to help out and I'm not sure some colors could be made like fuchsia, lighter shades of blue, and greys. But they do have most of base colors most commonly used, and maybe with enough demand from us they'll put out more.
More testing and experimenting with different colors, different plastics, and different dyeing methods needs to be done. It looks to be a good replacement so far, especially for black and it should be easy to find at most big craft stores. I'll keep updates coming as we experiment and hopefully some others will try it out so we can get a good consensus on this dye which seems to be a much higher quality and see what methods work.
I've never seen anything but Tulip brand(crap) and Rit.
