Need help trying to figure out how or best way to dye clear resin. It has already been cured/printed from the 3D printer. Now in post production I want to try and dye it. I bought some RIT powder dye and don’t know if I should use water or vinegar. Also don’t know what temperatures I should be applying.
Please help!! Just a student trying to finish a project.
I don’t think you can DYE it- at best you can PAINT the surface with a pigment. you just have to ensure the pigment is transparent if you want it to transmit colored light.
If you want to make it a solid color… opaque… just about any acrylic paint will do.
If you want to keep the transparency/translucency but add color, alcohol-soluble dyes can be absorbed into some resins after printing, and it should work alright with Clear V4. You may be able to find alcohol-based inks at an art supply store, or you could (messily) take apart a color Sharpie marker, soak the inky marker contents in 91% Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol from a pharmacy, and then experiment with soaking your print in that for some length of time (start short). Sorry I don’t have more concrete product recommendations or alcohol-soluble inks/dyes!
Sometimes this happens ‘accidentally’ when the post-processing IPA wash bath has been used with a heavily pigmented/dyed resin, like Black or Castable Wax.
I wrote to you in the other topic but here we go : I’ve used Rit DyeMore to dye already printed parts, just use IPA instead of hot water or else. It does DYE the parts, not just add a coating on the surface. Some have dyed the resin in the VAT before printing, which I have never done, but it seems to work as well.
If you want to try mixing before printing… I’ve mixed RIT dye with Clear resin with some success - it worked but there was speckling. “Nano dispersion pigment” from Peacock Colors worked like a champ and dissolved perfectly. I used it for the BabyForm2 project (sorry, forum link to that is broken).
I was successful with dyeing them. I used about half of the powder RIT Dye package and added some water and alcohol. Used my stovetop at about 2ish low setting keeping the water warm no boiling. It has stained the resin and looks pretty good. Worked better on clear resin. The white resin doesn’t look as good because of the cleats ability to hold the transparency. Only had the clear one under for about 15 mins
Thanks for following up, glad it worked out for you!
For the future, you can either dip parts in alcohol ink or airbrush them with the ink to achieve a nice clear hue. In my office we tend to first seal the resin part with Krylon matte clear finish, then airbrush with ink, then another layer of matte. If the part is meant to be glossy/glassy clear we use Krylon Satin and then Krylon Gloss coat.
Cheers!