Dying Clear Hoppers

[Gibbsey]

I know this has come up before a little while back, was wondering of anyone had any success stories in doing this? using rit dye or other similar products

I read through a rather large thread on it on pbnation, seems revvies are better because of the type of plastic although people claim that theyve managed to do eggys too.

Gonna give it a go as soon as i get hold of the dye.

(Some guy on pbnation asked whether he should place his whole hopper in the dye...considering its a saucepan full of boiling dye...oh dear :/ )

 

[Roulette]

doesn't dye weaken the actual plastic of the shell, as such wouldn't it be liable to break from a couple of decent hits

 

[Gibbsey]

something i hadnt really considered to be honest, wudnt have thought the dye would weaken it, the process could however.

 

[Roulette]

yeah kinda what i meant boiling dye cant be good

 

[Skeet]

I think you will find that they are made of Thermoset plastic..so wont be misshapen by teh heat process or otherwise affected.

 

[ruthlessp8ntballer]

Poor Mans' Way: Get a permanent marker (color of your choice) and take a hour or so to just color the inside of the hopper.

Middle Classmens' Way: Buy a new set of shells, they're not that much. And wont have to bust your ass dying those damned plastic panels.

Rich Mans' Way: Buy a new hopper, and keep the old one as backup.

I'd go for new colored shells, only if I had to though. Good Luck mate.

Have also read many horror stories of any dye (rit, etc...) not fully coloring the shell, but just tinting it a bit close to that color.

 

[dr.strangelove]

As much as I hate to link to PBN...

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=452598

 

[Gibbsey]

If i fcuk it up ill just buy new shells, it'll be a learning experience.

I want a blue tinted hopper, if i succeed ill post up a pic, if not ill post one up anyways and you can all have a laff

 

[jahlad]

i was supposed to be posting about this on the pa forum just havnt got round to it yet.....

basically opper shells are thermoset plastic so heating em wont cock em up or anything.
ive done revvi shells with rit dye and boiling water......boil water, add dye, suspend parts in there so they dont touch the sides, turn heat off......leave till its dark enough.....works well and fades are easy to if you get the angle of dangle right.

egg shell i havnt tried but im told that the plastic is harder and less responcive to the dye but if you keep the dye at about 90 degrees c and leave it a couple of hours that it will take.....same with halos.

once you are done you need to dip the shell into ice cold water to seal the dye into the pours of the plastic.

ive seen a couple of eggs done by leigh (pgi sharks now i think) that he did with optical lens tint.....his dads an optitian.....they looked pritty good in pink and blue but not over dark....tho that could have been intentional.

another idea i thought of is to use the stuff that is used to paint remote control cars....they paint the inside of the shells to get a gloss finish....no reason why that wont work and should be pritty tough, although im not sure how the chemicals in paintballs may affect it

 

[Rabies]

Originally posted by jahlad
another idea i thought of is to use the stuff that is used to paint remote control cars....they paint the inside of the shells to get a gloss finish....no reason why that wont work and should be pritty tough, although im not sure how the chemicals in paintballs may affect it

I did that with my old revvy. It works ok, but starts to wear very quickly so it's not long before it looks plain tatty (the revvy ended up with a circular pattern around the paddle where the balls get whirled around.) It's vital that you use polycarbonate paint; normal acrylic just won't stick and flakes off. Unfortunately polycarbonate body paint is only available in a limited range of transparent colours.

If I'd realised at the time I could dye the plastic instead of painting it, I'd have done that for sure.