Painting on vs heating up dye

[A buzzz and a beer]

So I have been interesting in doing some basic dyes for the last year now. The problem I have is that I do not want to have to heat up the dye on my stove, and I don't want to buy a portable burner just to try out dyeing. I saw a video back last fall that a guy who did really good work was actually painting the dye on for people at a tournament. He did something like add rubbing alcohol to the dye and then just used a paint brush to dye the disc.

So who knows how well this works? And how do you do it?

I was also thinking if the dye needed to be heated I could even just boil some water, dump it in a bowl or something, add the dye to it, and stir. I'm not sure if this would work, or if anyone has tried it.

[Itchy]

The no heat method is:

Liquid Rit
Rubbing Alcohol
Paintbrush

Pour a little liquid Rit in a plastic cup and pour a splash of rubbing alcohol in there. Mix it up, paint it on, wait 5-10 minutes and then hose it off. Less clean up than using a pot, just dump your Rit somewhere safe and throw everything away.


I don't think the boiling water/pellet Rit/disc soak idea would work too well. I think it'd be way to hot at first giving you bleeds and then cool off to quick leaving you with poor coverage. But I've never tried that so I don't really know, just speculation.

[eky8]

The more I read about this and the more I do it, the more methods I find to do it. I have read about the dye and rubbing alcohol. I also know people who paint with dye and acetone, doing multiple coats for darkness. I have done painting with just dye and liquid laundry detergent for thickener. I am also aware of people who are mixing dye with shaving cream to thicken and then painting. The downside to painting with shaving cream, laundry detergent or some other thickener is the amount of time you need to wait to get the dye to set. From hours to days. Although this can be done faster by floating the disc in hot water after you are done painting. If you use acetone it is quick, but has a tendency to dissolve the glue on the bottom of the vinyl. Not that familiar with rubbing alcohol. Personally if I want to do multiple colors I dye the black or outlining color with hot water and rit, then paint the color dye.

[AciDBatH666]

Here's a Phoenix I did with a brush a while back.

I did the black in a pan of rit and then brushed on the orange/red fade by putting a little bit of Rit powder in a small container of acetone. Not much, it doesn't take much to do it. The less acetone you can use the better. It stains ULTRA fast. I only really use it when I need to do gradients and fades and a brush is the only way I can get that effect.

I never really messed with other ways of doing it, but I've heard of a handful of people using dishwashing soap. I just don't have the time to wait with that kind of stuff if it's slow to take the dye.
Also, with the Acetone. I find that it fades a lot faster than doing the rit in a pan method.

[JHern]

So, the dye takes better if its heated, that's clear. I wonder if it might be worthwhile to try painting the dye onto the plastic with a thickener or gel, and then applying heat locally, such as using a soldering iron? That could also maybe produce very nice effects and gradients. Best to try with a practice disc, first.

[Itchy]

I don't think I'd take a soldering iron to a disc. If you want to add heat, maybe a heat gun/blow dryer. Soldering irons really only put out much heat if they're actually touching that something. I don't think plastic would hold up very long.

[eky8]

I have painted on the dye and then put it in a pan of warm water dye side up. It does accelerate the process but not as much as I'd like. A heat gun/blow dryer would probably work even better. The downside is it dries the dye. If you could add heat and still keep the dye moist I think that would be optimal. All of my most recent multi color work has been painted on.

[Apothecary]

The downside is it dries the dye. If you could add heat and still keep the dye moist I think that would be optimal.

im a dipper, not a painter...but i have to think that youd have to watch out for melting vinyl adhesive as well. painters is that ever an issue when applying heat?

[Itchy]

Of the discs I've painted, I never used any more heat than what the sun puts on it while sitting for 5/10 minutes.

[JHern]

I don't think I'd take a soldering iron to a disc. If you want to add heat, maybe a heat gun/blow dryer. Soldering irons really only put out much heat if they're actually touching that something. I don't think plastic would hold up very long.

I wasn't talking about actually touching the disc with the soldering iron. In fact, I don't like the idea of heating good plastic at all. The soldering iron would only touch and heat up the liquid. If you could get the liquid to boil on top of the cool plastic, perhaps it might create an interesting pattern? I don't know.

[eky8]

The downside is it dries the dye. If you could add heat and still keep the dye moist I think that would be optimal.

im a dipper, not a painter...but i have to think that youd have to watch out for melting vinyl adhesive as well. painters is that ever an issue when applying heat?

I always dip the black. then I pull all the vinyl and paint what I want painted. I've never needed the vinyl after I have the black on. And I've never had to worry about the heat. At this point most of the time I just let the dye sit overnight. I will do most of my painting before I go to bed at night. Put the disc in a pan with just a little bit of water in it, then I put the lid on and when I get up in the morning I rinse all the dye off. So far this seems to be the most consistent. I also get a nice rich color. I've tried some heat in an effort to speed the process. But so far this is my favorite way to do it.