#PEEK PLASTIC BLOCK INSTALL#

What was the final verdict? The parts seemed to take to the chemical solution and dye mixture I concocted, but the part was apparently visible in a hue of black and purple. After one hour of boiling the part, I pulled the piece out and dunked it into a cup of distilled water to close up the pores and seal the surface. Once the timer went off, I checked the part, only to find it covered in a blotchy coating of dye but no change in color. I dropped the parts back into the pot, then reset the timer for 15 more minutes. After the first 15 minutes, I pulled the parts out to check the progress and found minimal change. The next hour was spent gently agitating the parts while making sure to refill my water levels due to evaporation.

Dye will leave marks on pretty much anything, so be aware of that risk! It is important to remember to keep your pot of water at a rolling boil! If you splash the dye on the stove or kitchen element, clean it ASAP. Once the dye is completely mixed, I submerged the plastic into the water at a steady boil for one hour and checked progress every 15 minutes. The dye will stain anything and everything it touches – including your clothes – so be forewarned! The plastic did change ever so slightly in hue, but is clearly not black in color as I intended.įinally, I mixed the Rit liquid dye into the pot and stirred using a disposable wooden chopstick. Take, for example, a plastic building block piece I soaked for a few days in a mixture of Rit dye and Acetone. If something doesn’t dye even after an hour, most likely it won’t take the dye well. If the pieces are not as dark as desired, go ahead and throw them back into the dye for a few more minutes. The dyeing process typically takes approximately 15-30 minutes, but depending upon the type of plastic, it could take up to an hour. Any dirt, grime or oil can cause discoloration. You also want to make sure that you clean your parts very well before their dye bath. Rit can usually be found at your local department store it is available in different pigments should you desire an alternative color.Īny light-colored plastic part will usually accept dye (the rule is you can go darker, not lighter), but you need to be aware that mixing colors won’t always yield great results.

A huge advantage of dyeing is that this method completely penetrates the plastic, so if you scratch the piece it won’t show the old color but will show the dyed color unlike spray paint. However, Rit also dyes plastic materials very well and it’s very popular within the hobby community – their black dye in particular works very well, and it’s almost impossible to tell if something is dyed or not. Rit dye is a product formulated for dyeing fabric. Utterly disappointed from the previous spray paint debacle, I decided to move on to the next experimental procedure using a combination of household products in an attempt to dye these plastic parts. After some research, I found a compelling answer in the form of plastic dyeing. So what was I to do? I needed to find an alternative solution that would result in a permanent color change. To my dismay, the paint scraped off with minimal effort. The only conceivable problem is this type of paint is not a dye, which could become an issue if the sun visors were continually used, which could eventually cause the painted surface to scratch or chip.Ģ4 hours after the paint had fully cured, I decided to test the piece by swiping my finger nail across the surface. The visor parts were carefully prepped with cleaner and plastic adhesive, prior to coating them with an aftermarket pigment formulated to restore or change color on most vinyl surfaces, flexible and rigid plastics it’s considered a permanent coating.

#PEEK PLASTIC BLOCK INSTALL#

Do I install the white clips and have them stand out like a sore thumb or paint them to match the rest of the interior? I chose the latter of the two and decided a quick fix was to spray them with plastic paint. Having redone the car’s headliner and entire interior in black only magnified the issue at hand. I was able to source a set of Bluebird clips in decent condition from Japan, but the drawback was that they were white as with all visor clips offered for the 510.

When it came time to purchase a set of sun visor clips for Project 510, there were no options other than to purchase them used.

Peek plastic block