Dyeing a pickguard with Rit Dye

[morange]

I dyed a white Allparts 5-hole telecaster pickguard with the powder form of Rit Dye today, and I have some notes in case any of you want to try it.

I think this pickguard is made of PVC, and that may be important. From what I read, Acrylic doesn't take dye at all. I think most pickguards are PVC, though, especially inexpensive ones.

I used a box (8 oz) of Royal Blue and a box (8 oz) of Teal, mixed together into 16 cups of tap water. I would suggest using the liquid form of the dye, because it might mix better. There were particles of sediment in the mixture, and you can see speckles on the pickguard because of it.

I boiled water in a pot, and mixed the powder dye with some water in a small jar, then mixed all the water and dye in a cheap turkey-cooking tray I got from walmart so my pot wouldn't get stained. I let the mixture sit for about 15 minutes to let it cool some, to keep the pickguard from melting when I put it in. I then put the pickguard in and let in sit in there for an hour, stirring occasionally. The pickguard didn't dye at all this way. I took the pickguard out and heated the mixture to boiling on the range-top, then turned off the heat and put the pickguard in again. The pickguard got soft and floppy, but it began talking color. I left the pickguard in the cooling mixture overnight. I believe that the pickguard will only take color while it is soft, because it wasn't darker in the morning than when I left it the night before.

You can see in the picture of the back that the hot turkey tray burnt lines into the back of the pickguard. It's important for the pickguard not to sit on the heat source. A good option would be to boil the mixture and pour it onto the pickguard in another container, and repeat this a few times for darker tinting. Or you could keep the mixture on a heat source, but use something inside the pot to lift the pickguard off the heat while keeping it in the mixture.

The pickguard sat more or less flat on the bottom of the container, which I think helped control warping. The pickguard did warp some, though, so that it's not completely flat. To correct this, I sandwiched it between some cloth on a flat table and lightly ironed it. It's flat now.

[morange]

Update: Somewhere between melting in the solution and deforming and being reflattened with the iron, the pickguard shrunk just enough to not fit right on the guitar. I'm dying another one tonight, more delicately, and a different color. I'll post the results.



Yeah, heat and dye are no good. My second attempt took less color, and again, slight shrinkage results, and the holes then don't line up right. I'm going to experiment with this method: Rit dye, with pvc cleaner in the water (if that will work). I'll update then. http://makeprojects.com/Project/Stain-P ... GnkYlGKA_w

[kosta]

Looks great, too bad it shrunk!