dyeing swamp rat handles?

[nc527]

I am about to recieve my first swamp rat, a 2nd gen HRLM with the tan micarta handles, and I was wondering if it is possible to rit dye the handles, since they are perm. attached to the tang.

 

[snwbrdr202]

Good question! Micarta is made of either canvas, linen, or paper. There is no reason you SHOULDN'T be able to dye micarta. I don't want to ill advise you, so I will wait for the more knowledgeable Rats to speak up!

 

[silverbullets]

Good question! Micarta is made of either canvas, linen, or paper. There is no reason you SHOULDN'T be able to dye micarta. I don't want to ill advise you, so I will wait for the more knowledgeable Rats to speak up!

I have seen it died before, not sure who, possibly Rainwalker but I could be off. Anyway I know I have seen handles died black :thumbup:

 

[leatherman]

I've dyed several knife handles in the past. The canvas micarta works best, followed by linen. G10 does dye, I turned a black G10 handle solid black and it hasn't come back yet. I am afraid the black G10 will eventually show those white threads again, just because fiberglass doesn't dye well.

I use leather dye, the Pro Oil Dye from Feibings works best as it gets the time to work in very deeply before it dries.

I've seen a lot of handles RIT dyed, but I dont have any long term feedback on it, but, so far so good.

 

[Jac The Slayer]

I have done it with Rit red dye. Works just fine.

 

[Rainwalker]

I'm with Dwyane, Feibings Pro Dye has worked real well for me!:thumbup::thumbup:

I've mostly used Black on Black Micarta (always looks Grey to me...), but I tried Brown once and it seemed to work fine as well on the Black Micarta, I just decided I liked Black better myself. Most of the above knives have Black Micarta handles, dyed black.

 

[leatherman]

Those look great!

I just stained the tan handles on my Waki black the other day, I found out that white coating takes the dye as well. Now I have gray spots, and thinking about making the whole blade gray.

 

[Rainwalker]

That's interesting info on the white coating, I've wondered about that and been asked about it a couple of times about it...

It'd be interesting to see how it turns out if you do dye the blade. Grey and Black look great, IMO!:thumbup::thumbup: I never used to have a real set preference on the colors, but I've kinda got stuck on Grey and Black over time...

 

[leatherman]

I will be sure to report back in when I do the stain, that will be very soon, now I am very curious.