# How to dye water cooling tubing *Experiment*IKIKUINTHENUTZ



## IKIKUINTHENUTZ (Sep 20, 2009)

Did a project here and thought it would be nice to share it with everyone.

IKIKUINTHENUTZ with another great project! Experiment!

Fast summery of how the idea come to be:
Couldn't find the color tubing I wanted because I searched 2 weeks for it and asking people like Cyberdruid or companies like Saint Goblin (Tygon) who said they don't carry it, don't know,or never seen it. I was looking for Transparent black water cooling tubing. The tubing is for my IKIKUINTHENUTZized Navig Tech Station. http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=98467

I found something called Rit Liquid Dye while doing my laundry. I read the information and figure WHY NOT!

Materials used for this project:

A pot you will never use again
Rit Dye Concentrated
Water
Non Iodine Salt
A metal tong/strainer
A stove
Tygon R3603 1/2in. ID 5/8in. OD Laboratory Tubing cut into pieces







Directions are straight forward. What I did here is testing out with Black dye to see the results much easier.

Water in the pot with one cap of the dye. Do not put a lot of the dye in the water, the stuff is extremely dense. Sorry no measurements, I will assume I put 6 cups of water and one cap of the dye.

Put tablespoon of salt to help activate the dye and increase required temperatures to boil.

Heat it up on high until rolling boil





Once it starts rolling boil, turn off the stove and move the pot else where on to a cooler surface. Use a strainer or clamp to carry the tube in place and simply dip and stir it in while it is hot. Do not let the tube fall to the bottom or pinch the tubing while it is hot or it will make the tube warp into a different shape.





Now depending how long you leave it in the dye, your results will vary and you need to experiment on cut pieces so you know how long  to leave in the tube to get your desired color before doing large pieces.

Once you think it's ready, remove it and simply flush it with tap water in a sink.

Here are some examples all next to the non dyed tubing









Now I inserted my Bitspower barbs to help you see the transparency. Each one of these represent how long I left it in the dye.

No Dip, MFG original





7 seconds





15 seconds





30 seconds





30 seconds with a re dip after flushing of 20 seconds





The last image was the tube a bit warped because I accidentally pinched it when it was real hot with the tongs.

Maybe everyone here can experiment with different Rit Dye colors, different brands of tubing, and with different results to share. Try it out if you want tubing in the color you want that you can't find.

MAKE SURE THE TUBING YOU USE HAVE HIGH HEAT TOLERANCE LIKE TYGON LABS OR YOU WILL HAVE A MESS TO CLEAN UP

Also to note that I haven't testing the tubing to see if the dye leeches out. However I will note that washing it with soap and water will not remove the dye.


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## pantherx12 (Sep 20, 2009)

Nice result, thanks for sharing.


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## coodiggy (Sep 20, 2009)

Good one! I like the results from the first 30 second dip. I wonder what it would look like if you fill the tube with clear water on the inside, then plug the ends, dying only the outer surface.


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## mlee49 (Sep 20, 2009)

Nice work, should dye multiple colors or maybe redip with different colors for different affects.


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## IKIKUINTHENUTZ (Oct 11, 2009)

Finally I Got Some Time to do this damn thing! Midterms sucks

Anyways I got a big update for all of ya

This post will be talking about these items shown here the topic will be Rit red, black, and whitener stuff





Thanks to Snipedogg of XS this is what he shared


SNiiPE_DoGG said:


> Good idea IKIKU  as I have said before on these boards in regards to RIT dye, there is a lot of cool effects you can make with it - with specific respect to tubing I would think some kind of spiral patter using electrical tape and possibly a hot glue pattern would be very cool



Why not lets put this claim to the test shall we?

This image below is comprise of 4 things: Masterkleer tubing, DD T-line plugs, electrial tape, and water inside the tube.





the purpose of the plugs is that so the dye will not go inside and the tape is for stopping the dye dying where I don't want it to be.

Repeat the steps in my first post and simply pull the unit out from your desired time and rinse it very well.





I removed one fitting, poured out the water inside, then started to remove the tape





Whoa that came out very nice!





the next thing I did was that I re seal the tube, tape up the whole process again but this time I put the tape directly over the dyed parts





Repeat the process, remove the tape, fittings, etc Vollia!





now my next test involves regularly dying of 2 different cuts of Tygon tubing
one with red dye and the other with the red dye with the whiter stuff

After dying one tube I put the whitener into the same pot of red dye. the stuff smelled and acted like detergent.





Left one is the regular dye and right one is the dye with with the whitener. It Don't look that great and it was very cloudy.





Under UV light, the one with the whitener barely shows some characteristics but it's not that great


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Oct 11, 2009)

Very neat to see this!  What is the material of the actual tubing being dyed?


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## IKIKUINTHENUTZ (Oct 11, 2009)

whatever masterkleer or tygon uses, both brands work so far

all I know they are some poly plastic lol


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## mlee49 (Oct 11, 2009)

I'm impressed!  I want custom died tubing!!!!  

What was the purpose of the water inside the tube? 
Does it help the die process or was it to just weigh it down and keep it underwater? 
 Either way I like it and want to do this.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Oct 11, 2009)

Ok just thinking a bit ahead here, would you not want to seal off the inside of the tubing so when the dye does start to degrade, it has no adverse effects on the pumps?


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## Troy210 (Oct 11, 2009)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> Ok just thinking a bit ahead here, would you not want to seal off the inside of the tubing so when the dye does start to degrade, it has no adverse effects on the pumps?



I was thinking the same thing, little chunks of dye might wreck havoc on a pump?


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## Binge (Oct 11, 2009)

It's going to leech is what you mean right?  There will be no large particles, but there may be some color leeched into the fluid, and that would create buildup down the road.


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## grunt_408 (Oct 14, 2009)

good thinking. Looks good


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## DanishDevil (Oct 14, 2009)

Very cool idea! Liking it.


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