This is something I just started so I can't recommend it yet, but it does look promising. Someone may have tried this before but I don't recall seeing it.
Leather dye on a bare, unfinished enclosure. This is just red. But, dye colors can be mixed! Took less than 10 minutes. More on this soon.
Are you planning to put a clear coat on it? It does look pretty cool and 10 minutes to do it is fabulous.
This is awesome! Be interesting to hear more about this, spraypaint is a pain
I wonder how laser etching would work with that
Looks very cool! 8)
Great idea, thanks for sharing!
So it is not fully drying. Kind of not surprising since there is probably little absorption into the metal so it sits on top. Trying a hair dryer to speed it up. It may require a clear coat to seal. More soon!
Cure it with FIRE!
Doubt it'll work, but it'd be awesome if it did...
Fire makes everything more awesome.
Quote from: juansolo on October 20, 2016, 07:01:18 PM
Cure it with FIRE!
Doubt it'll work, but it'd be awesome if it did...
Fire makes everything more awesome.
I tried fire to relic some Tayda stompswtich nuts like i've always done with other stainless parts ...
(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_6865_zpsd175b9c6.jpg)
To be fair Alpha nuts responded the same way. Now I use gun metal bluing to age stompswitch nuts. Jack nuts- fire.
dave
I applied some envirotex. It changed the color a bit but also made it pop quite a bit more. But, because the dye never fully dried the sides ended up running off some of the color. So, it's not quite what I was hoping for but does look pretty cool.
I did not do any sanding or cleaning of the enclosure beforehand and that might have made a difference actually. Allow the dye to absorb more into the metal. Probably a spray clear coat would not run like the envirotex. We'll see how it looks in a couple of days after it is fully cured.
That looks beautiful - almost like it has a caramelised sugar glaze on top!
I'm hungry now. :P
It does look awesome though. I'm keen to see other colours.
One nice thing - it takes almost no dye to do a coat...even several coats. I bet an 8oz. bottle would last for 30 boxes or more. I'm using Angus Leather Dye.
One bad thing - oh boy do you gotta wear gloves. This stuff will stain your skin like no one's business.
That looks cool. Maybe it doesn't dry as much as absorb into the leather, and possibly react with some of the proteins. No idea really, just hypothe-phisizing.
But maybe a coat of shellac on the raw box before dye might give it something to sink into?
The shellac is a great idea, wgc. Thanks, I will try it next time.
I'm getting really impressed with this. The vibrancy of the color and texture coming through the dye is very pretty.
Have you ever tried the leather dye on a light colored Rosewood fretboard? Assuming you like dark fretboards, that is.
Here's another approach- mix the dye directly into the Envirotex. This could work for etched enclosure, probably even flat painted ones for a color tint.
So cool. On my to do list!
Clear decals with black labelling on the enclosure before dyed envirotex would look very good, I think, font-dependent :)
Finished product on the first enclosure. It's a Chunk Chunk!
Here's the other one finished off. I put a Bear Hug in it. Since I had an extra hole drilled, I had to come up with another control. First I tried a variable resistor off the source of Q1 (a 5kB in series with a 1k2 resistor instead of the 2k7) for a gain control. Then I tried a 10uF in parallel with a 2k7. Neither of those did much for me. So, I put a 22uF switched in parallel with C9. This seems to change the release time to about infinite (and makes the initial attack just a bit more pronounced it seems). Kind of a ridiculous mod but it's something.
The added "pop" you mentioned more than makes up for the slight change in shade/color, IMO. Mixing the dye in w/the E-tex ---- now that's CHEATING! ;D 8)
They both look great & I hope somebody will throw that on top of an etched box for us all to oogle at.
With the dye mixed in the sides of the enclosure come out a bit weird. You get more of a tint rather than a solid color and the dye tends to collect around the bottom leaving a ring of color. Not much that can be done about that, I think.
I've got a couple other ideas on how to do the application with tinted envirotex so I'll update this thread if I make more progress.
Thanks for sharing this technique. I really want to try this. I'm really digging the final results. I've been getting into etching lately and filling in the tech with black paint to make it pop. I wonder if the dye could go over that? Or do you think the dye would cover the paint?