[QUESTION] Modifying Colors of Pieces

[General Magma]

Hey there! So lately I've been looking for certain kinds of plant pieces - I've ordered and received AltBricks pieces, which are great, but it seems that AB nor LEGO themselves have olive green flower/grass stems to offer, anywhere. Since grass in this color would be pretty crucial for certain MOCs that I've got in mind, I'd like to find a way to change the colors of official (bright green) grass stem pieces into olive green, in a way that makes them usable pieces for MOCs - pieces of a good enough quality. Currently, I'm looking for the opinions of others on this, and I'd like to know if any of you have attempted anything like this in the past, and if it ended up working out for you, as well as suggestions & ideas for what I might want to try in order to achieve this. Thanks in advance!

[Wardancer]

A noble endeavour. I would be interested in hearing how it turns out. There is a famous video on dyeing lego, but I cannot find it. Hopefully some of the users know it.

[General Magma]

Bump, since I'm still looking for suggestions. And hopefully somebody around here knows that video, yes - it sounds useful.

[Wardancer]

[General Magma]

vid

Awesome, thanks. Though I'm not sure where I'd be able to get "RIT" in my country,

and I'm wondering if this would work on regular LEGO grass stalks as well, since those are more of a flexible plastic.

Edited June 15, 2015 by General Magma

[Wardancer]

I imagine this to be quite difficult, because your source material is not white and has a color already. So the new pixments will mix with the old color.

Why does altbricks not make them? It is an obvious gap in the market. Have you asked him? He does have dark olive leaves, so he has the material and the moulds.

I would love dark green flower stems. So I am very interested in this.

[General Magma]

I imagine this to be quite difficult, because your source material is not white and has a color already. So the new pixments will mix with the old color.

Why does altbricks not make them? It is an obvious gap in the market. Have you asked him? He does have dark olive leaves, so he has the material and the moulds.

I would love dark green flower stems. So I am very interested in this.

I've been wondering about that as well, so I have sent a message to AltBricks,

regarding dark olive, regular olive (appletini, to come closest to LEGO olive green) as well as brown and dark brown. Let's hope they'll make them, would be great!

[Wardancer]

Great, let us know the answer.

[MAB]

If you use black or brown RIT dye you will be able to darken the stems, but I doubt you will get either consistency or be able to match the official colour. RIT is great for making things go black. Any other shade is tough.

It does work OK on some soft parts like stems but not handcuffs.

[Armothe]

RIT is best use on fabric, not plastic. I've never been able to get RIT to change the color of white to much more than a minor tint towards the color I wanted.

-A

[MAB]

Did you use liquid or powder? I've always found powder the best. You often need to heat to about 60-65C and sometimes use a small amount of acetone in the water.

I've found it a very good way to recolour brickforge parts too!

Edited June 24, 2015 by MAB

[Cloveapple]

I've successfully dyed Lego using RIT dye. However, the formula for RIT dye changed a few years back and no longer works well on Lego. So, if you are using the classic RIT powder in a box, it needs to be the older formula. (If you Google RIT and disc golf, you'll find message boards with the golfers bemoaning the change, because they used to use RIT to dye their discs and then it suddenly quit working. A couple other hobbies had similar experiences when the dye changed.)

(edited to add: I did not use acetone, just RIT and boiling hot water. However the Fifty Shades of Bley guy appears to be using the newer, changed-formula RIT, so maybe the acetone is necessary with the new formula.)

Edited June 29, 2015 by Cloveapple

[LegoWarBoys]

For what its worth, I have found that Krink brand inks perform well on Lego. Highly staining and you can achieve a much smoother finish vs. sharpie.

[General Magma]

I have received a response from AltBricks, saying that they were considering those colours for grass stalks for their (now previous) factory order,

but ended up having to abort that - however, I was also told that they might get them in those colours the next time they order parts from their factory,

so let's hope to see some grass in awesome new colours by then! I'm certainly looking forward to it.

[Wardancer]

Thanks for the update! We need to be patient then.

[General Magma]

Looks like the future alternative has been beaten by LEGO themselves...

http://www.eurobrick...751_box1_na.jpg

That's a real picture, not edited or anything - we really are getting official olive green flower stems!

So, in other words... wish granted. The only thing that remains to be seen is the pricing on Bricklink... let's hope they'll appear in more sets,

because otherwise we will still actually need a (cheaper) alternative after all.

Edited July 8, 2015 by General Magma

[MAB]

There's nothing worse than Lego not doing a specific piece ... apart from them doing it and making it rare in an expensive set!

[doanduyhai]

So for normal lego pieces, you can use any acrylic/enamel paints used by model specialists. It works pretty well

For dying transparent pieces, that's another story. After dozen of attempts with different techniques, I have found one that gives quite satisfactory results

 

[LuxorV]

Please, stop reviving years-old threads to add links to your more recent one. I'm sure people are well aware of it.

Thanks.