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dyeing slikstik translucent balltops
juggle50:
Boy I felt like a moron for trying this and there was no way it was going to work but it did and was sort of a delightful surprise.
Anyway, I love the slikstik translucent led balltop joystick,but everything on my cp is blue and the slikstik looks great when lit but when the lights are off the opaque color looks out of place in the context of everything else. So I started thinking of ways to change the color without losing it's translucent quality.
I stumbled upon this link:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3825/is_199907/ai_n8867845
about dyeing plastic by boiling "Ritz" clothing dye (found in any supermarket) and sticking the plastic in the boiling dye until the desired color is acheived. This technique seems to be used frequently by the RC car community and for frizbees.
I gave it a try feeling a bit like a tool and followed the directions in the link pretty closly. I tried it with navy blue first (using the powder dye) and was impressed with how even the dye was and how effectivly it changed the color but didn't like the actual color much. It turned the balltop into more of a greyish purplish blue and wasn't exactly what I was looking for.
I ordered some more balltops from Christian and tried it again using "Royal Blue" (this time in liquid form) This turned out perfectly. I used two tablespoons of dye and boiled it for 5 minutes. It's not the exact same blue as my buttons, trackball and trigger stick but close enough to keep with the theme. I also didn't feel that I lost out on much if any illumination.
Here are some pics.
pointdablame:
VERY COOL!
I'm considering some Slikstik lighted handles for one of my projects, but didn't like the idea of a white stick when the LEDs were off. I never even considered dying them. Nice work.
juggle50:
Thanks man,
I forgot to mention that SlikStik puts a thin layer of foam material inside the ball top to disperse the light evenly as bubbles develop during the casting process. If you try this, make sure to remove the foam with needle nose plyers before boiling. Also, I've got an extra royal blue one if anyone wants it.
pointdablame:
So the Royal blue one is the one in your second pic? I'm guessing you could have gotten it even darker if you left it in longer, correct?
I am definitely going to try this if I wind up going with these sticks. How much did the extra ball tops cost you?
juggle50:
Yeah, it's the one on the right in the picture of the three lined up. The more dye you use and the longer you leave it in the darker it will turn. The balltops are $3.50 and you can ask Christian to send you some extra of the foam that he uses for filtering. I would buy a few so you can experiment. If you go too dark you may lose some translucency, I don't know. There is also a "denim blue" that may get you a darker tone. I didn't experiment with that one though.
Also, since they are hollow they will float and not dye evenly, so you need to use a chopstick to hold the balltop under the water or use something like a fishing weight and put both the weight and balltop in a sheer nylon bag of somekind so it doesn't float up.
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