ChUcK's latest dye...

[AciDBatH666]

Man I don't even know about my shelf life. For dyes I use a 50 yard roll of oracal 631 I think. It's the economy one. I got my first roll when I got m plotter I December and it lasted me till about a month ago. I'm on a fresh roll right now. I'll have to read to see if there's a shelf life on mine. That's wierd tho because I'd assume the shelf life on the vinyl I use to make decals would be super long because it's rated for 5 years outdoors.
Economy prolly has a pretty horrid shelf life.

I'm glad you mentioned putting some dye on by hand, I've been wanting to mess with that a little for accents and stuff where I don't feel like breaking out an entire batch of dye. I used to do it with rit powder mixed with acetone, but I've been wanting to try rit + acetone + dishwashing soap. Read it's supposed to give vibrant colors. Or if I could make it more into a paste that would rock.

When I get back from Austin tx this weekend i wanna mess with some stuff like that.

 

[hippiediscdude]

I have used a rit+dishwashing soap mixture and gotten some pretty good colors. I havent tried black yet, still using the pan for that. My experience with the soap method is that you have to let it soak for a day at a minimum, but the colors are pretty vibrant. The cool thing about the dish soap is it tends to stay put. I havent tried to mix the soap with acetone. I have mixed straight rit with acetone and the colors set fast and bright, but they fade out pretty quickly. I have heard of people using rubbing alcohol with decent results but I havent tried that yet. Does the laundry detergent thicken up once you add the rit to it? It seems to thin to stay put on a disc.

 

[ChUcKyZ]

I've done trials with both with similar results, with similar viscosity to the dye. The differently colored laundry soaps mixed together ok, but the laundry soap and dish soap didn't blend their colors together as well.

 

[hippiediscdude]

I have used clear dish & hand soap from the dollar store. Colors mix awesome. Dawn has a clear dish soap that is real thick and mixes well too. I've found that the longer the dye/soap mix sits the better the colors blend.

 

[grizzles]

Took the time to do one for myself the other day. This is with laundry detergent and black rit. Not the darkest I've ever dyed a disc, but I only left the mixture on for ~6 hrs. Damn Discraft hotstamp channels let the dye slip by in the ears...

ESP Wasp

This is super cool. Is that original artwork? If not, where'd you snag it from? I'd love to put this on one of mine.

J

 

[ChUcKyZ]

Finished. I can't decide if I want to add another layer of blue shading (lighter) or just leave it.

I'm digging the way the beak came out, though.

 

[AciDBatH666]

Yeah that beak is mad wicked.
Not sure if you should go for another round of blue, couldn't hurt if you know it wont get jacked up in the process.
I'd say if you could blend the lighter blue with the existing blue go for it. BUt I'd hate to see it show some solid lines between one color to another. Would look even more pimp if it was blended together.

 

[ChUcKyZ]

That's the thing- I was going to use the same blue but only leave it on for a few minutes so there would be a lighter shade between the dark blue and white. There would definitely be solid lines between the shades. I'm not sure yet if laundry soap is the best method for achieving gradients of color. I've had an easier time painting with acetone, much easier to control the shade of different layers because it dries *now* and gives immediate feedback.

 

[whridlsoncestood]

Ok for multiple colors I have been doing multiple dips. It works when you have one color over black. Maybe 2 colors over black depending on what they are. But something like this where the blue and yellows would deffinetly mess up the previous colored dye. Are you recovering everything you previously dyed and then redipping or are all the multiple colors painted on somehow after and do you cut out the colored areas after too on the disc so you don't leave a thin black line when you dip the initial black?

 

[plshrk]

I do believe he uses an acetone mix to paint the colors on.

 

[Tim Red Beard]

Finished. I can't decide if I want to add another layer of blue shading (lighter) or just leave it.

I'm digging the way the beak came out, though.

Again another disc to prove that Chuck is the Master!

 

[ChUcKyZ]

One of many, if a master at all.

I almost forgot to post this one. This was the prize disc for best individual costume at the 666 doubles tournament that ...tim? threw this year.

I had to cut this one out with dark blue vinyl on my light table, and that made it extremely hard to trace. This picture probably lost 1/2 of the detail from the original simply because the design was so tough to see through the vinyl.

Someone at the tourney asked me if it was a mummy or a ninja.

 

[dgdave]

Is it a ninja mummy?

 

[ChUcKyZ]

I told him it could be a homeless ninja, but a ninja mummy sounds quite a bit cooler.

 

[ChUcKyZ]

Here's an afternoon spent experimenting with multiple layers and laundry soap-

Not quite what I envisioned at the start of the project, but it worked, at least. I first tried dipping it in some old blue dye I found in the back of the storage room, and it ended up being some weird reactive dye that I tried over a year ago with no success. The only other dye in the house is the blue laundry soap stuff :? which works fine, but dipping would have resulted in a more pronounced fade of color with like 60 seconds per layer dipped.

 

[ChUcKyZ]

Another experiment today, my beat proto Zone dipped 16 times at 45 sec apiece in a color wheel of fuschia tints. Or tones, whatever.

 

[tigel]

Really nice dyes Chuck, great job.

 

[AciDBatH666]

Dude, now THAT is P I M P!
I think you should do another, but with it spiraling inwards to a point. So it would be like a brick road towards the center. You might have to shorten that dip time so it wouldn't make the outsides too dark tho..... It would be a little tedious and be about 10 times the work of dipping, peeling, redipping... etc...But if it came out like that, it would be WICKED.
I may go do something like that when I can. Definitely fresh

 

[ChUcKyZ]

You know, I was thinking about how changing variables would affect an exercise like this one. If I started with a white disc instead of Dcraft's salmon-colored ESP the darker shades might become differentiable... I also thought of shortening the cycle time, which would lead to less difference between each shade, but more shades that are unique before the dark fuschia mess that becomes of the beginning dips.

It might have been cooler to dye the pencil-thin wedge outlines black instead of fuschia, who knows. Then the darkest shades would at least be split up...

But yeah, shorten the dip time to 15 seconds, start with clear opto or white star, I bet it would look pretty sweet.

This dye execution wasn't all that much work- except for the fact that you cannot leave it for the entire time the dips are performed. For each successive dip all I did was pull the disc out, pinch it with my left hand, tweeze the next pie slice off while still over the pan, and set it back down. Then I would immediately set the timer again and wash my left thumb. Gotta remember to wash the thumb, lest the fridge door handle reveal evidence of indoor dyeing again :lol:

 

[XCyclone]

Sweet dye.