Thinking to dye my yellow Salt scales...any advice?

Surfingringo

Surfingringo

Joined
May 25, 2013
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So I got two new salts this year to replace old and lost ones and decided to try the yellow versions. Honestly I don't much care for the color. Not a big deal since these are pure users, but it crossed my mind the other day that it might be a good excuse to play around with some dye. Has anyone here ever dyed frn? Does it last or will it wear off with use? Any suggestions on dying yellow frn?? I guess black would be the safest, but what about using a color?? If you put blue dye on yellow frn will you get blue or green? Anyone with any tips or experience in this?

Thanks in advance,

Lance
 
RIT dye will work, though it won't penetrate FRN much, even if you soak it for a good long time, so scratches will end up showing the color underneath at times.

Blue should get you green, and if you do some other color and don't like the outcome, dying it black is always a great backup plan. If you want to make a pattern that keeps some of one color while you dye the rest another, apparently you can use a hot glue gun to cover parts you don't want the dye to work on. Check out this thread for a yellow knife dyeing with hot glue example.
 
I've used RIT dye on my ladybug salt to turn it black and I dyed my wife's dragonfly salt blue. The blue is harder to do. Not enough time and it comes out greenish and too long and it looks purple.
 
I dyed two pink squeaks. One to orange. The other to brown. Use the powder dye and some water vinegar mix.

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[video=youtube;CPNnZqBHM9g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPNnZqBHM9g&sns=em[/video]
 
Hmm...orange might be a good color to try. Should be an easy transition from yellow and maybe won't look horrible if it scratches off or fades some. Still gives some good visibility if dropped in shallow water too. I guess that sunshine orange would be the best one to try?

P.S. Aqua man, I don't know if that is your video, but I was wondering...the orange looked like it was kind of splotchy when finished. May have just been the light or camera. I dunno.
 
That's not me. I just thought the bi-color looked cool. I think if you let it soak long enough it will not be splotchy.
 
I've never done it before but I saw this video before. This should help:

[video=youtube;jb5g3xolWA4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb5g3xolWA4[/video]
 
Use boiling hot water and powdered RIT dye. Soak time in the dye depends on what you want. I've dyed a Benchmade and Spyderco that both had yellow frn and I dyed them orange. The RIT Sunburst is very bright with a yellow tint. The Tangerine is really a dark orange. If you want true orange, get the tangerine. Don't judge the tangerine by the box color which seems to be dull and have a brown tint. It is ORANGE when you dye yellow frn. I also did the hot glue trick with a G.Sakai Sabi 1 knife that was yellow and dyed to orange with the glue streaks in it.
I dyed the micarta on a couple Esee knives to black the same way.

I let mine soak about 30 minutes and stir every couple minutes. I wanted orange and wasn't trying to "make" a color like dying a yellow handle with blue dye to get green so the time in the dye was a matter of checking and stirring often until I was sure the dye had taken and was the color I wanted. I've seen guys dip for only a few minutes in the videos and there always seems to be a void or fading somewhere on the handle.

Time and patience are your friends. Stir and check often. PM me or post here if you have questions.
 
Here's some pics. Phone pics so I apologize.
VERY IMPORTANT. Wash the handles thouroughly in hot soapy dish water and rinse thouroughly afterwards. Try not to touch the frn handles once you rinse them. Oil from your hands can keep the dye from taking and may leave splotches. It's important that the handle is CLEAN before dyeing.
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Dyed my salt 1 today with sunshine orange. Used the liquid dye and added some vinegar. Came out very even and looks good to my eye. As others warned, the sunshine orange is a bit bright but the knife looks good. Will try to post pics tomorrow.
 
I will be using it in my kayak for fishing every day so I will report in next month and let y'all know how the dye holds up to salt, sun and use.

Honestly I'm pretty dubious, but we'll see.
 
Great dye jobs. I haven't dyed FRN before, only G10. Does anyone know if the yellow FRN will dye red. It seems like the red would only turn a dark orange. I'm just curious if anyone has tried it.
 
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