Interesting Rit Dye results

[Exspiravit]

So I had this old Romanian red pistol grip laying around that had been painted at one point in the past. The paint was starting to peel and it had been confined to my junk drawer, where even more paint ended up getting scratched off. So, I stripped it with a Dremel buffing wheel.

Used Citristrip too, but couldn't get every bit of paint out of the textured part of the grip.

And then I used my bakelite orange Rit Dye recipe on it, letting it sit for an extended period of time.

And by golly, it's somewhat orange. Once it's dried completely I'll either tung oil or clear coat and we'll see how well the color comes through.
If this works pretty well, the same method could be used to make border guard green or other weird colors. It could also be used on the East German lower handguards, the Bulgarian bakelite handguards, and original VZ-58 furniture. A bakelite orange VZ would be super neat.

 

[Thomas Willert]

That color looks great...
Nicely done..

 

[Jabroni]

Whats all involved in the rit dye process? Just boiling it in water? Looks good!

 

[Exspiravit]

Whats all involved in the rit dye process? Just boiling it in water? Looks good!

Pretty much. The work is in prepping your material if need be and experimenting with dyes to get a color you like.

 

[Average Joe]

Nice! Keep us updated on how it turns out with the finish oil or clear coating.

 

[Exspiravit]

Welp.

Kind of disappointing as all I did was lighten it. At least it doesn't have a bunch of gross, flaky paint on it now.
I'll probably get a hold of some more and try some different things. Maybe just use yellow instead of an actual orange and some other colors on these, as they're cheap.

 

[Exspiravit]

Looking a little more orange as the clear coat dries.

 

[Exspiravit]

Just a spray on high gloss.