anybody dye their toys?

There was a fella in japan doing a beautiful job a while back. Everything was greys and blacks and he called them monocronauts i think.
I saw the dye at tokyo hands that is specifically for dyeing plastics, but i bought some rit and gonna give that a try. I'll psot pics whe nI'm done.

My girl picked up some purple dye that she's using on shoes - I've ready it can be used to dye plastics as well by boiling it in an old pot. I'll try it with a repro henshin cyborg soon but I'm certainly not looking forward to the process!

found it.

here's the site, scroll down to the bottom and you can see everything.
http://www.radiotoon.com/MONO/index.html i think the guys name is Tamotsu Shinohara.

Holy crap, the guy is a pro... Amazing stuff!

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with...

here's the firs ttest. Dye took very well to the time traveler, but barely did jack to the crater cruncher.
maybe time to get the real stuffs.

Color came out nice smoke.

Forgive me for these are clearly not Henshin or Microman. But all my customs so far are dyed. I really like the finished look of dyed vinyl.




You gotta be careful to boil out all the excess dye though so it doesn't seep out later and dye your hands or clothes.

Sweet stuff man! Lovely colors!

Thanx.

Seems to work extremely well on Japanese vinyl. Don't know how well it'll work on harder stuff like plastic.

My girl picked up some purple dye that she's using on shoes - I've ready it can be used to dye plastics as well by boiling it in an old pot. I'll try it with a repro henshin cyborg soon but I'm certainly not looking forward to the process!

Is that DYLON dyes that you guys are referring to? I did try boiling a repro HC in the dye for the first time but ended melting it instead. Just make sure that it is not over boiled as long as the color just manage to catch on the body will do.

Thanx.

Seems to work extremely well on Japanese vinyl. Don't know how well it'll work on harder stuff like plastic.

Yup vinyl works best u can boil as long as u want for the desired color effect. Hard plastics probably melts first before u can get the color to get on it.

Some guys have used both glass paints and regular fabric dye on some of their cyborgs. There's some back threads over at Visible Innards on those techniques.

I recall Guy Redwing talking about teh long term effects of dye - and that it wasn't good. Sure he posts about it on VI

Ya, Guy is the man to go to when customizing Cyborgs. He also has more alternate heads than I ever knew existed, including just about ALL the Cure Mars Attacks heads.

hmmm didn't think about longterm effects, and yeah didn't really work on the crater cruncher too well, but at least it didn't melt.
I thought the rubber band inside the time traveler would snap but it was fine too.

Good Lord man!
This sort of alchemy can get quite close to creating your own meth lab.
This is one of those times where I don't want to be involved with this site, because people are going to want to debate and the best results are really not safe.
I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on this subject.

You have to look at all the types of plastic that go into a complex toy.
If you take it apart, they might not fit together.
If you dye it together, some parts are darker than others.
It is really complicated and you blow throu a lot of test toys.
Doing it "IN A POT" is how I started and the carnage is horrifying.
I have video of me throwing piles of clothing, toys, heads, accessories.
Half of which are now GREEN! instead of black.
I use as little dye as possible and spend a lot of time trying to leech out what I can right away.

I'd take that Japanese website with a grain of salt.
They can get better chemicals (the more toxic, the better), but
even if he could BLEACH all those different types of plastic with such perfection,
The process dries out the plastic. (Same with SHRINKING your vinyls with Acetone - which is fun, but takes half a year)

I had my share of fun with the bleaching thing, but it is pretty dangerous.
I don't even want to talk about the successful experiments, because I dont' want to encourage people.

Please be careful. Dying and Bleaching is a Highly unstable art.
Bleaching works best with a catalyst (usually causing heat to be produced in the process)
Not to mention because the Vinyl is like a sponge, the bleaching reaction can continue for months!
Harder vinyl is much more secure than Rubbery Soft vinyl
(IE the HEADS.) Use as LITTLE Dye as possible.
When in doubt, throw your dyed toy in with a pile of naked barbie dolls for 1 -3 months.
You want to make certain that everything is stable and not leaching toxins before you pass it on.
You will see the leaching problems i have been on about for years.
But then if you DYE a toy and flip it to an unsuspecting buyer within 10 months, then who really gives a rots arse, right?
It will be their collection that suffers...

Hey Guy, good to see you posting here and thanks for the info.

I wouldn't mind being thrown in with a pile of naked barbie dolls

As far as dye is concerned what toxins are we talking about leeching?

I use quit a bit of RIT dye mixed with close-to-boiling water to dye my vinyl. As long as the finished product is boiled in clean water after the fact, to remove any excess dye, I've had no problems. Rit dye is made for clothing so I doubt if it is any more toxic than the untouched vinyl.

Bleaching, I can see as being very detrimental to the vinyl/plastic as far as drying it out badly. Is there any evidence if dye harming or shortening the life of vinyl?

Clear paint is safer.
Remember in art class, how they reminded you of the raw chemicals used to create the colors. Don't eat after directly handling certain colors...
Cadmium in yellow, Cobalt in blue, etc...
In general, you are using a fabric dye for something it was not intended for.
The Rit dye company is not going to test the product for dyeing vinyls and for subsequent traces of excess dye from handling the vinyl.

Every Mgeo fan has fussed with mego heads. Some color stays, some does not. Depends on the head. Everything depends on the vinyl and you don't know the specific formula for evey piece of vinyl. The stiffer the vinyl, the more secure the dye job. Leach out any softener within the vinyl and you can go far. Shrinking the vinyl, dye the vinyl, whatever.
Again you never know exactly how it will end up.

Bleaching is far more permanent, but the reaction can keep going on beyond what you were intending, until the vinyl is TOO dried out.
Like bleaching a shirt and then the thread all falls out 4 months later.
I soak my stuff off and on in hot water & alcohol for days after dyeing.

Again it is all alchemy. Just wash your hands after handling the stuff.
and put more dye on the INSIDE than the outside.
Rit does not exactly say you can actually EAT off of vinyl plates dyed with the stuff.
Would you risk it?
Nuff said?

I wouldn't eat off a vinyl plate. Dyed or not.
I don't think there is any danger of me eating off of toys either.

But I do wear clothes that have been dyed. I figure if I can wear the clothes, I can handle the vinyl.

Again, I don't want to debate it. Just read the bloody box.
It is a weird concept to say if the box says TOXIC, the material "MIGHT" be potentially dangerous?
If the box says NON-TOXIC, then you are fine, but those colors suck.

I did all this too. Many a night I crept into bed with purple hands and dye spots in the Kitchen.
I have dyed everything.

"Rit® brand dye, like all brands of all-purpose dye, is a mixture of two kinds of dyes - an acid dye, which will just wash out of cotton, since acid dyes work only on animal fibers such as wool, or on nylon (but not on other synthetics) - and a direct dye, which is duller in color and bleeds a bit with every single washing, forever, unless a mail-order permanent dye fixative such as Retayne® is applied."

You are thinking of aesthetics. We are NOT talking about cotton. You want dye which does NOT wash out. Vinyl retains it like a sponge on it's outermost layer (or like the Rolaids commercials in the 1970's)
Does a paint dry smooth or sticky, vs is it lead based or poisonous.
Sticky paint BLOWS, no question about it.
Nothing like atomizing the cadmium yellow for a nice toxic spray...
But it looks awesome! Just be careful. There are far worse things you could be doing.

This stuff is cool, but I agree this stuff can be very, very, very toxic. The bleaching is voodoo and the dyes can be toxic past that.

So I admire the effort, but I think I'll stick to cleaning stuff with rubbing alcohol and then spray painting if at all.