Dye job for gray belt covers

[forFREEDOM]

As much as I love my new/used Italian Monster S2R8....I've always had a love for German made HK firearms. Built most of them from scratch to milspec. All US compliant to my local laws. Well, most of my rifles were sold as butt ugly gray rifles, so that they don't look to tactical and import much easier into the US. An easy trick was to dye the gray rifles so that the color is permanently changed to a beautiful satin black finish. The color gets deep enough that scratches are still black. Better than any plastic paint.

So examining my S2R's belt covers and realizing that it's a plastic heat resistant material (similar to the HK's Nylon-66) a carbon polymer composite.  I figure I'd try the dye method.

- Thoroughly scrub your covers with degreaser. Rinse them with soap and warm water. If you don't get all the grease out, it'll leave a stain. Degrease it more if you're not sure.
- Take a 5 gallon bucket = $5 at HomeDepot. (You can also use a large waterproof tray, old cooler, or something that you can cover your parts in)
- Boil a few pots of water. I did this in my basement on an electric stove using two 2-gallon pots at the same time. Get them up to boil and keep poring them into the bucket till it's a couple inches from the rim. If you have to wait to boil more water, just keep a lid on the bucket. The hotter, the better the penetration.
- You'll need 4 bottles of  liquid Rit Dye = $12  (3 black / 1 dark green) NOTE: Don't buy the powder dye. This quantity is what you need for a 5 gallon mix.
- Shake up the dyes and pore them in...stir for a min.
- Hang your covers with wire, hanger, phone line, no clamps. Dip them into the dye. Lift them up and down to ensure there are no bubbles.
- Put the lid on and wrap the bucket with an old winter coat or thick blanket. I used an ugly coat I got from my monster-in-law a few Christmases ago.
- I usually let my dye jobs sit over night (5-8 hrs). When it's time, open the lid, the water will be very warm to pretty hot.
- You'll pull them out and see a tint of purple. No worries. Rinse them out in warm water and rub them down real good with a rag and WD40.

I wanted to post pics of this but I just did it last night and they turned out perfect. A nice dark flat black. I'll post pics tonight.

For now these are how some of my firearms turned out. Sorry if you are an anti-gun person. I come from a military/police family. So we love firearms.

Before dye:


After milling, plastic welding, and the dye job:




Sorry if this was posted before.

[Turf]

You're going to fit in well here

[Mojo S2R]

Nice write-up.  Those HKs came out sweet.  They should definitely also be posted here: http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=25903.0

[Teutonics]

I have also read that adding salt to the RIT dye mixture will help the dye penetrate the plastic even more.  Is there any truth to that?

The HK's look good!   

[erik822]

Please post pics of the finished covers. The HK whatever it is looks very cool.

[ducatiz]

You're going to fit in well here

lol

[Heath]

So why the 3 parts black one part dark green?

[Turf]

So why the 3 parts black one part dark green?

dark green is secretly...

more blacker

[forFREEDOM]

Thanks all. Glad to see there are some others who love to shoot as well as ride on here.

Here's a pic with the camera phone. The dark green does help to get a deeper black. And the yellow properties of the green help to negate the purplish tints that come from lots of black dye. You will still see a bit of dark purple in your mixture, and even a tint of it when you pull your parts out. (There's no sicker feeling than pulling out your firearm receiver thinking you'll be showing up to the range with a purple gun.) But a good rinse in warm water and a WD40 rub down will take care of all that. If you still see a hint of purple, rubbing alcohol works great too.

[Heath]

Those looks good.
Right now my covers have vinyl paint on them.  Some of that has come off from taking them on and off several times. Do you think a good strip job would be enough and then I could dye them? 

I thought about dying them 4 years ago  but just could not find someone that had success in it.  Now seeing all this I really want to try it. Thank you.

[forFREEDOM]

It's totally doable. My friend had a rifle that a previous owner painted with GunCote or something. It was pretty scratched up. So we sanded it off and wet sanded it smooth to get the swirls out. It came out great. I'm sure vinyl paint should be easier to strip. Maybe use some type of paint remover/stripper first. Sorry, I'm not to familiar with vinyl paint. Good luck!

[csorin]

I wanted to say thanks to forFREEDOM for the great instructions on this.  My belt covers and sprocket guard came out looking like OEM plastic parts.  Truly, it is ridiculous how good this stuff looks.  Here are some pics. 

Now I've got much more to fix up on the bike to bring it to the level of these plastic bits.  Who knew I'd be saying that.  Cheers forFREEDOM

[forFREEDOM]

That looks great, csorin! Wish I remembered to do the sprocket guard like you. To bad there are more bits that need powder coating than an easy dye job.

[Mudflaps]

Looks simply awesome. Im kinda wondering about the durability of this dye. Anyone have any complaints so far?

[forFREEDOM]

Looks simply awesome. Im kinda wondering about the durability of this dye. Anyone have any complaints so far?

It's as durable as the polymer itself. The heat helps the dye soak into the material. It's now permanently black. Minor scratches won't show up unless you gouge it some how. On one rifle that was already dyed, I decided to mod it by cutting off the stock to add another one. It looked like the dye soaked in about .5mm into the plastic. Of couse I dropped it back into the dye bucket when I was done.