rit keys

[False_Dmitry_II]

Alright, so I tried to do a green by combining lemon yellow and evening blue.

The keys, both IBM model m and space invader, have instead turned some sort of sickly greenish neon yellow/green. I tried to add more and more blue dye, but it seems to have made little difference. At this point, I'd want to have almost any other normal color since it clearly refuses to go green.

I have lemon yellow, sunshine orange, scarlet red, evening blue, royal blue and black available. What should/could be done at this point.

[IvanIvanovich]

Making custom colors can be a real trial and error affair with rit. Lemon, is like a neon yellow almost so I'm not too surprised turned out bright. Golden would have been a better yellow, with royal to make an army green. You can't do anything but go darker now. You could try flash dying it in straight evening, it might get to where you want it, or look worse. Otherwise the safe choice is just to go black.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well seeing as how just turning the heat up to 11 (boiling it) had no ill effects on my keys, I can go ahead and try just blue first.

Since I have no interest in trial and error, I much prefer it just working (sans spacebar) like it did with the orange and my AEKII keys. So I don't think I'll try mixing colors again.

I could try getting kelly or dark green, not sure what the result of that would be. What do you mean by flash dying?

[IvanIvanovich]

Flash dying - high heat, short time. Best to put the caps in a wire colander so you can pull them up and down to check the color every 30 seconds or so after the initial minute or so. Blue can get too dark really fast.

[False_Dmitry_II]

I think I won't care if they get too dark.

The weird thing, is that the model m spacebar is a Greenock one. Apparently there's a good chance it's abs (or something). It warped a little bit, but it did take the color that I was going for.

When I poured the rest out, it was pretty dark, but I guess the rest of it overrode that somehow.

[False_Dmitry_II]

If I no longer wanted to use it I would. So whenever I have a replacement I will. (I'm also not sure if I have some, but I probably do somewhere)

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well turns out it is unusable. It happened in the low 70 Celsius range.

So, I tried doing just blue and added a little black to that mixture. No flash dying of any sort happened. They just slowly and slowly got more muted. The model m keys ended up looking pretty close to the grey modifier keys, but with a blue tinge. The space invader keys ended up some sort of dark khaki green.

I then went ahead and tried to do all the modifier keys from both boards black. After 2 hours they look maybe slightly darker but with a purplish hue. Why is this not working? These modifier keys hadn't even had anything done to them yet.

[False_Dmitry_II]

I also just tried red because I've seen it done in the past. It looks a salmon pink instead and won't do anything different. I find it hard to believe that I can only do orange or yellow because those worked flawlessly. I don't see what's going wrong here.

[theferenc]

Did you add salt to the mix? When I dye my IBM keys (I've done red, green, orange, purple, blue and yellow), I add the dye and some salt to water that starts out around 140 degrees F (this is my tap water, tested with a potentiometer). I then set my stove (electric) to 7, and just cook the keys for 18 minutes, stirring constantly. It almost always turns out exactly how I want it to. They also never quite hit boiling, topping out around 190 degrees F.

[wcass]

OK, my secret weapon to be used on hard-to-dye plastics.  you can use this on plastics that would otherwise warp in hot water.

a 6 or 8 quart pasta cooker is best for dying - it's big enough to do all the keys at once (for consistent color) and it has a built in strainer for easy checking the color.

add enough warm (not hot) water to cover the keys plus one inch - depending on your pot this is about .5 gallon.

pull the strainer/keys out and add one package of RIT powder dye and stir with paint stick till all is dissolved. the liquid dyes have a different formula than the powders and i have heard from others that RIT Liquid does not work on plastics.

add one cup (8 oz) of MEK (get it in the paint area of your hardware store) and stir with paint stick. Methyl Ethyl Keytone is chemically similar to Acetone, but evaporates a little slower. Used strait, this stuff will melt most plastics at room temp. but at this mix with water, it just makes the surface of the plastic soft enough to take the dye. when you take the keys out, the solvent evaporates long before the water does.

lower the strainer/keys into the mixture and stir.

check the color very frequently as they will go very dark - very quickly.

You don't need salt in the mix. salt is used when dying cloth as a fixing agent (helps set the colors). it has no effect with plastics. but you might add a drop of Dawn dish soap if you see a "film" on the surface of your dye solution. that dye film might otherwise cause your keys to look blotchy.

WARNING: MEK and Acetone are very flammable. do not get the undiluted  stuff anywhere near flame or high heat. but as a 15% aqueous solution,  it tolerates flame OK. think 30 proof alcohol vs 180 proof moonshine.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Interesting, I was pretty sure I read that the liquid should be used. In fact I remember reading one guy who would use 2 bottles per go.

These have no trouble with hot water at all. Like I said, I had left the ones that I wanted to turn black in for hours. Only thing that happened turned a bit purple. This is hours at or right before boiling.

Can we see some pics theferenc? Of just results, as I'd think that's all you still have.

[hashbaz]

Wow thanks wcass.  Can you post pictures of ABS caps dyed with your method?  Does the MEK have any visible effects on the keys? (other than allowing them to take the color of course

[hashbaz]

Interesting, I was pretty sure I read that the liquid should be used. In fact I remember reading one guy who would use 2 bottles per go.

IIRC the conclusion from the main RIT mod thread was that the two forms are equivalent for our purposes.

[theferenc]

These are the only pictures I have, and all the key sets that I've died are currently packed in prep for a move. The red and purple is a bit deceptive, as the light was wrong, but the red is very very red, almost blood red, and the purple is quite deep as well. But it was so bright that day, all the colors got washed out.

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Edit: Oh, and I use liquid dye, for whatever that's worth. Put the keys in a collander to keep them off the direct heat, and stirred constantly.

[False_Dmitry_II]

That purple was purple on purpose, and not an attempeted black right?

That's what I don't get. These are all more or less saying exactly how I did it (without the dawn, I'd add some of that next attempt because that annoying film seems to always show up) and yet mine just kinda sit there. It's much more annoying when the first time I tried it, it worked perfectly. The orange on the keys went halloween orange just as I expected it to. But everything after that just does nothing like I'd expect.

That green mixture I made? That ended up warping the model m spacebar? That spacebar went the green I was looking for. The rest of the keys didn't. Then everything I've tried since hasn't done anything near what it should regardless of method.

It seems like something is missing or being done wrong because all I did would be the same things as the successful attempt (which went perfectly as expected).

[theferenc]

The purple was on purpose. I don't even have any black dye. Well, I don't have any dye at the moment, as I just tossed it all in preperation for a move, but I never had black in the past, either.

So, silly question, but you are stirring constantly, right?

[False_Dmitry_II]

Yes and no. Sometimes I'll just let them sit for awhile, but others I'll stand there and stir.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well, I think there's something to the allegations that the box is better. I bet it has something to do with whatever the specific plastic mix is.

So, first I stirred for 3-5 hours straight. Using a bit over half of a bottle of the scarlet. I also added dish soap and vinegar. I don't know if the vinegar did anything or not, but at heat the dish soap definitely (with stirring) kept the film off the keys so there was never a need to rinse them. The most that happened was it got maybe a little darker pink.

Then I gave up and quit, leaving it sitting there. I went and got a box of powder. Within 10 minutes (after bringing it back to heat) I saw it getting darker. Within an hour, I was confident that it wouldn't get any darker.

After that, I tried a bottle and a half of evening blue (they didn't have a box of that, so I got another bottle) for the wasd keys. With a similar mixture of vinegar and dish soap, after 3 hours I didn't get much results. Here's pics:

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There is a difference in color between the spacebar and the other keys, but it's nowhere near that big normally. I guess direct overhead sunlight is too much. And no, my spacebar is not on backwards. These things are nuts the other way and with the strong spring that was originally on it.



I've finished this one too:

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[hashbaz]

Well, I think there's something to the allegations that the box is better. I bet it has something to do with whatever the specific plastic mix is.

So, first I stirred for 3-5 hours straight. Using a bit over half of a bottle of the scarlet. I also added dish soap and vinegar. I don't know if the vinegar did anything or not, but at heat the dish soap definitely (with stirring) kept the film off the keys so there was never a need to rinse them. The most that happened was it got maybe a little darker pink.

Then I gave up and quit, leaving it sitting there. I went and got a box of powder. Within 10 minutes (after bringing it back to heat) I saw it getting darker. Within an hour, I was confident that it wouldn't get any darker.

Good to know, thanks for posting your results.  Are these PBT keys?

[False_Dmitry_II]

I'll have to do that when I do something that's unknown. I'll test it with the IBM key so you can add it wherever (at some point).

Isn't that and the heat test just less sturdy/durable vs something more so? What I mean is, what would be the results of POM or other possibilities?

All I can say for those space invader keys is that they give not a crap about heat. I even took it to a boil with no protection for the keys because I just went ahead and let them sit on the bottom. So the one thing they are not at all is ABS. I couldn't tell you if they were PBT or something else. I can say that they didn't act like the rest of the AEKII keys (you can see those in my picture) which took the orange from the bottle and were done quite quickly.

Then there's the behavior of the two ABS spacebars I broke. The AEKII one warped but barely took any of the color. The IBM one warped but took all of the color that I was trying to get.

So just my results, even if these keys I did red are PBT, don't tell you which kind of stuff you need to use.

[IvanIvanovich]

Coated keys? Try some diluted armour etch before dying. That stuff removes the UV coating without melting abs. Seems that the UV coating is also successful at keeping dyes from taking properly.

[False_Dmitry_II]

I don't think that UV coating played any role in what I've done so far (not to say that it never will). It's just that if you look at AEKII auctions and find a yellowed board, the spacebar will also be yellowed. If it was UV on that abs spacebar stopping the dye then it is a complete failure as a UV coating.

I also don't think that for the space invader keys it could have done anything. If it did, it wouldn't make sense that the coating which would still be on there would allow powder rit and not the bottled rit.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well, I can tell you that one cup of mek is definitely too much. Now I have a ball of key shaped objects. Stupid ABS.