Spyderco Forums

RJNC wrote:Any of you Rit dye guys ever tried dieing a white Spyderco knife to look like classic woodland camo? Could it be done?

http://uparmored.tripod.com/index.html

http://uparmored.tripod.com/id24.html

OK, those blade skins are shazam!

I picked up some of this liquid masking tape for models:
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/div/div3000.htm

very useful and peels clean off!!

FIMS wrote:OK, those blade skins are shazam!

Stunnng, but you can turn a D4 into a very expensive knife (relative to its purchase price, anyway) very quickly this way.

JNewell wrote:You'd have to do both the already-dyed areas and the to-be-dyed later areas. To illustrate, if you want three colors:

1. Mask area 2 and area 3, dye area 1
2. Mask area 1 and area 3, dye area 2
3. Mask area 1 and area 2, dye area 3

actually, I think if you work with the right colors - say a light tan, a medium green, a fairly dark brown, and a black, you could do this:

A1=tan area | A2 = green area A3 = brown area A4 = black area

1. dye tan. no masking.
2. mask off A1 and dye green.
3. mask off A2 (leaving A1 covered) and dye brown.
4. mask off A3 (leaving A1 and A2) and dye black.

At least that's how I would do it I think. with enough contrast between lighter and darker colors, it should be plausible (though 4 colors may be a little ambitious for this method - It would be interesting to try nonetheless).

defenestrate wrote:actually, I think if you work with the right colors - say a light tan, a medium green, a fairly dark brown, and a black, you could do this:

A1=tan area | A2 = green area A3 = brown area A4 = black area

1. dye tan. no masking.
2. mask off A1 and dye green.
3. mask off A2 (leaving A1 covered) and dye brown.
4. mask off A3 (leaving A1 and A2) and dye black.

At least that's how I would do it I think. with enough contrast between lighter and darker colors, it should be plausible (though 4 colors may be a little ambitious for this method - It would be interesting to try nonetheless).

That would work with paint, but not with dye. Dye does not have the same degree of opacity as paint. It's one reason only white knives can be dyed successfully to colors other than black. Green over tan will not look green. Brown over tan might look brown, or not, but brown over green certainly would not.

Am curious to see how RJNC's knife turned out, have to admit I'll be very surprised if it worked.

That might work out great - only one way to find out! As Paul mentions, the dyes don't tend to overcoat or even mix well on a surface so experimenting might be useful. I saw someone testing on white cable ties, btw. I wonder also how similar white PVC piping (which is dirt cheap) is to white FRN? There must be cheaper ways to experiment than using real white FRN Spydiescales.

defenestrate wrote:actually, I think if you work with the right colors - say a light tan, a medium green, a fairly dark brown, and a black, you could do this:

A1=tan area | A2 = green area A3 = brown area A4 = black area

1. dye tan. no masking.
2. mask off A1 and dye green.
3. mask off A2 (leaving A1 covered) and dye brown.
4. mask off A3 (leaving A1 and A2) and dye black.

At least that's how I would do it I think. with enough contrast between lighter and darker colors, it should be plausible (though 4 colors may be a little ambitious for this method - It would be interesting to try nonetheless).

JNewell wrote:That might work out great - only one way to find out! As Paul mentions, the dyes don't tend to overcoat or even mix well on a surface so experimenting might be useful. I saw someone testing on white cable ties, btw. I wonder also how similar white PVC piping (which is dirt cheap) is to white FRN? There must be cheaper ways to experiment than using real white FRN Spydiescales.

Toothbrush handles, even the cheapest ones, are almost always nylon and very often white. Hardware stores use to carry nylon rod stock, generally in black, white, and clear. PVC would probably be an acceptable substitute, but nylon may also be "slicker", hard to say for sure.

The Deacon wrote:Toothbrush handles, even the cheapest ones, are almost always nylon and very often white. Hardware stores use to carry nylon rod stock, generally in black, white, and clear. PVC would probably be an acceptable substitute, but nylon may also be "slicker", hard to say for sure.

Brilliant!!! :D

Sorry guys there won't be any pics, it failed miserably. Even though i made the dye the consistency of mud it still all ran together.

Sorry to hear that RJNC. At least you tried. I applaud your efforts. :)

So I'm just dyng it all brown. At least brown is a rare spyderco color.

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Well the camo didn't work so I went with brown, here's the brown Spyderco. Made it too dark though, I think.

sorry the experiment didnt work but the brown looks nice

The Deacon wrote:That would work with paint, but not with dye. Dye does not have the same degree of opacity as paint. It's one reason only white knives can be dyed successfully to colors other than black. Green over tan will not look green. Brown over tan might look brown, or not, but brown over green certainly would not.

Paul, you're right... but if you don't progressively mask/dye in this way, you'll end up with messy borders and other problems--even if you used a form-fitted stencil to spray-mask each area, you'd probably still get some bleed in the texture of the FRN.

So effectively, if you want a three-colour pattern, we need to think about colours and dyes differently. Colour two will be a combination of dyebath1 + dyebath2, and colour three will be a combo of dyebath 1, 2, and 3. Not a simple process, but if each colour is darker than the last, and you pick the right combos, you could get a definite pattern. Probably not milspec woodland, but something interesting I'm sure.

well hot glue could work. It would easily get in the textured surface. I just dont know how easy it would be to get it cleaned out.

but you do:
first color (lightest)
hot glue the areas you want to stay that color
second color (next lightest)
hot glue that area as well
and so on

but it may turn a nasty color with all the layering.

a really in depth method would be to hot glue all of it, and leave small patches ungglued
dye the whole thing, so most of it is white and a little is colored
reglue the colored part and remove the glue from other places
dye that, and reglue
etc

that way the colors wont layer and turn nasty. but it would be a PITA to have the exact areas recovered (otherwise you would end up with white or dark streaks where the colors overlap.

but with patience it would turn out amazing

I should have dyed it red and green for xmas.