Dying parts

Post by **CaboWabo** » Mon May 26, 2003 11:19 pm

you old school R/Cers should be familiar with this concept.
after seeing crazydave paint up his steering adjuster arm, I got to thinking. Why hasn't anyone dyed their parts yet?
The knuckles mang.
Their seen like a bad dog, think if you dyed your knuckles to accent your paint scheme on the car... phizzat!

So who's gonna do it and be the first?

Stoli · Post by **Stoli** » Mon May 26, 2003 11:24 pm

Well C-dub I've been using Plexi dye for awhile. For all the Computer mods. Works good too. Looks VERY stock. I may try that with my supra once I get it. Doing the body anyways.

Thats a really good Idea though.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Tue May 27, 2003 8:29 am

I used to dye my parts, and was thinking about doing the same to my bits.

I had only painted my parts that day, because I was bored, but I had to scrape paint off in all the moving areas to prevent binding. Ideally you would want to use dye.

For anyone that is looking to try it, you only need some fabric dye, like Rit brand, that you can find at almost any grocery store, and follow the directions on the package. I haven't tried this on bits yet, so I can't garantee results.

noxorc · Post by **noxorc** » Tue May 27, 2003 9:01 am

just asking, but what makes you think plastic is going to absorb the dye?
(the tiny little pock holes?)

-nox

Post by **CaboWabo** » Tue May 27, 2003 9:06 am

yea, plastic is porous. it worked on plastic parts of the old school RC10 days, should work on the white plastic parts of the bit too.

cj · Post by cj » Tue May 27, 2003 9:13 am

Just about any Nylon part can be dyed.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Tue May 27, 2003 10:06 am

Nylon usually takes dye best, but I've had some, that just came out streakey. You have to experiment. I'm not sure if ABS plastic will take dye, which is what I think the chassis on a bit is, but I think the suspension parts are some kind of nylon based plastic, since they have to be more flexible to resist breakage, and are white.

Those old RC10s, I believe, used a fiber re-inforced plastic, probably similar to nylon, with fiberglass mixed in. The fiberglass shock towers were dyable too. They actually used to leave the parts white so you could dye them yourself, but too many people just wanted to put their kit together and run them, and complained about the white, hence the parts being dyed black at the factory now.

mpbiv · Post by **mpbiv** » Tue May 27, 2003 12:23 pm

I remember RC Car Action doing an article on this where they dyed the parts on a old RC10 buggy. I will look and see if I can find the issue and scan it, that is if I didn't throw it out when spring cleaning.

mpbiv · Post by **mpbiv** » Tue May 27, 2003 1:04 pm

Turns out I did still have it. Here's the scans, hope it helps

http://plaza.ufl.edu/mpbiv/rc/dye%20page%201.JPG 422k
http://plaza.ufl.edu/mpbiv/rc/dye%20page%202.JPG 304k