vinyl dye?

[Spacephrawg]

over on the various nerf modding forums, they mention vinyl dye a lot. never heard of the stuff until now. it dyes plastics such as ABS and PVC so that even if you scratch it, its still the desired color. it works on cloth and leather too. I was wondering if it would work on model styrene and also what sort of paint besides acrylic would work over it? I'm told that some oil-based paints will not work over vinyl dye but haven't gotten specifics about it.

Thanks very much.

[Spacephrawg]

no takers? oh well. i tried.

[NNYGamer]

RIT dye might work on some plastics, a guy did a test on a keyboard for Instructables
http://www.instructables.com/id/Rit-Dye-Keyboard-Mod/

[Wug]

Thanks. I've wondered about it but never tried it. Here's a brief tutorial.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/modding/46

A bunch of places sell it online. It looks like you could buy it localy from auto parts and upholstery supply shops.

[Spacephrawg]

thanks for getting back to me!

Meanwhile I found this more detailed tutorial:
http://case-mods.linear1.org/im-high-on-vinyl-dye/

I've heard ABS plastic has model styrene in it. I don't know anything about the chemistry so I don't know how much truth there is in that. I heard it via the RC boating community on www.RCgroups.com. Normally a reputable source but their specialty plastic is fiberglass resin.

One thing the "i'm high on vinyl dye" article seems to say that over the course of the dye curing, it temporarily softens the plastic. I'm afraid this would cause warping if the shape is hollow or has a lot of protrusions and stuff hanging off in space. Probably bad news for airplane wings unless you have them sitting there with a support underneath.

One mr. Michael Fichtenmeyer aka Fichtenfoo, whose name might be familiar to Ma.K and gundam modelers here, told me that acrylic works over dyed plastic. He wasn't sure about other kinds of paint. He thinks laquer paints might also work but they would be bad for the plastic.

What I'm worried about are these things:
how to get acrylic paint to stick better to naked plastic
how well should i expect the acrylic to stick, especially since this, being a nerf gun, will be handled a lot?

about the RIT dye, I am not a subscriber so I was not able to see the full article 8>/ What is RIT dye exactly? I'm confused.

thanks for getting back to me and have a great weekend!

[AbsoluteSciFi]

I should warn you about some of the effects
of the vinyl dye: first, it seeps into the plastic
because it contains a solvent, that solvent will
make the plastic soft, and in the case of thinner
and less rigid plastics, such as model grade styrene,
this could mean your wings begin to droop.
Second, if you spray too much, even if the dye
does not make the part droop, it could soften
the corners, rounding them out. So, things
like scribe lines, and hard edges begin to
look less sharp.

As with anything else, this product is useful
to the experienced user, but I would not use it
on a model unless I knew exactly what was
going to happen. I might use it for spraying a
sheet of styrene, before I scratch-built with it,
or vac-formed it.

[Spacephrawg]

I should warn you about some of the effects
of the vinyl dye: first, it seeps into the plastic
because it contains a solvent, that solvent will
make the plastic soft, and in the case of thinner
and less rigid plastics, such as model grade styrene,
this could mean your wings begin to droop.
Second, if you spray too much, even if the dye
does not make the part droop, it could soften
the corners, rounding them out. So, things
like scribe lines, and hard edges begin to
look less sharp.

As with anything else, this product is useful
to the experienced user, but I would not use it
on a model unless I knew exactly what was
going to happen. I might use it for spraying a
sheet of styrene, before I scratch-built with it,
or vac-formed it.

thanks. I thought the softening was temporary though. No?

[Faefrost]

I'm guessing this probably would not work well with things like putty, seams filled with CA or resin parts?