Rit dye ABS

[RougeR]

Up untill now i had always been told that you could only dye pbt and that it would not work with abs. anyway i found this video

showing white abs being rit dyed black. was thinking of doin it to a certain keyboard but would likely test it on something like a model m2 first.

i wonder if any other colours would work, i may experiment.

[fohat.digs]

Please keep us posted.

This could be a big deal if 25% acetone is truly "safe" for ABS dyeing!

[SmallFry]

Sounds sketchy to me... keep us posted.

[RougeR]

going to try dying a model m2 black when i get it. will keep posted.

[nubbinator]

NECROBUMP.

Any update on whether this worked?

[mkawa]

25% acetone will melt abs, period. abs + ketones = depolymerization. you might be able to get some dye into the spaces left as the polymer degrades, but it's not a good way to dye abs. the best way to do this is just to get the abs in the color you want in the first place. that is, use my damned printer nubs (!!).

[nubbinator]

Not everything can be printed ming.  I'm still trying to find some good ways to dye certain plastics.

[mkawa]

i'm not entirely sure, but i think you have to mix dye into abs when it's in a liquid state.

i am working on an acetone vapor pressure smoothing station that might be able to do what you want, but it works by depolymerizing a (hopefully very thin) layer of abs at the surface of the object (eg, a printed object with filament striations). basically, you'll substantially change the cap, which is not what you want. with pbt you can sublimate the dye into the polymer structure, but it's not clear to me how to do that with abs...

there are low temp sublimation dyes, but i'm not sure if there's anything that's low enough to hit abs's glass transition @ 100C...

blj is probably the person to ask about this.

[Findecanor]

There are people on this board that have dyed ABS with RIT dye, the same way that you would dye PBT.

The problem is in controlling the temperature, as ABS deforms at a much lower heat than PBT and the dye won't work if the heat is not high enough.

[fohat.digs]

There are people on this board that have dyed ABS with RIT dye, the same way that you would dye PBT.

The problem is in controlling the temperature, as ABS deforms at a much lower heat than PBT and the dye won't work if the heat is not high enough.

I have tried several times, with very limited success. Accent on the word "very" .... there have been a few.

I think that the activation temperature and the softening temperatures (180-190F / 80/90C) are almost exactly the same, and it is all but impossible to strike just the right point on that sliding scale.

PBT works great because you can just boil away as long as you like and not worry.