Ok, as stated before, I need some help figuring out how, if they will, to get some parts of an Alternator Smokescreen to take the dye. I'm using the information pointed out in the advice thread sticky that covers several aspects of customizing, and this is my first experience working with dying plastic, instead of just painting it. Most of the parts of the toy are taking the dye exceptionally well. 1-3 minutes each to be dyed pitch black. However, several parts (Hood, front fenders, roof, rear wheel wells/fenders), are either taking the dye very slowly and unevenly, or not seeming to take it much at all. Some of these have been dyed for a total of up to 25-30 minutes each, and still have poor absorption leading to almost no color change or thoroughly uneven and imperfect color change. Most or all of these are the parts that replace the die-cast found on the Binaltech version. There seems to be something different in density or formula, despite the color of all the plastic matching. I'm hesitant to add too much acetone, for fear of totally destoying the parts, so, tips? Someone here must have done this before.
Try lightly sanding a very small part with fine(finishing) snad paper, reason I say try a very small part is in case it don't work, should absorb it now. I haven't tested it on the Alts yet.
All right...I've only had limited experience with dying - and yet I wrote the tutorial, whaddya know, heh - so I honestly can't offer more than that. What I would suggest is getting on www.tfmaster.com forums and asking them as well; there are a lot kitbashers on there that seem to dabble in dying and you might get more input...unless more input shows up here as well, in which case I'll eat my words! If you absolutely, positiviely cannot get the dye to soak into the plastics, my next suggestion would by Krylon Fusion spraypaint. It's a paint designed exclusively for adhering to plastic and it does a DAMN good job. I recently finished a Trailbreaker repaint (from Alt. Swindle) and I banged the HELL out of that repaint with plyers and hammers and etc. as I was putting the pins back in...and the black Fusion paint never came off. So far, I'm one sold customer on that stuff. ...so, I dunno if that helps or not, but at least it gives you options.
I'll second Krylon Fusion. I don't even bother with dye. I swear by fusion. That is what I have used on all but one of my customs.
Do you guys just tear everything down and then spray the parts with krylon, or has anyone tried brushing it on for small/odd parts? Just asking since I always wanted to try the fusion on something TF related.
If you hand a Transformer repainted with Fusion to a kid who will play hard with it - transform it a few hundred times and roll it around - yes, the paint will wear, including around the transforming parts or parts that rub against one another. If you're planning to transform him a few times between displaying that Transformer then no, you've got nothing to worry about. ...and Sarrow, I take apart everything I repaint so that the painted parts get 100% painted. You can never tell which nook or cranny of a Transformer part might remain unpainted if you just mask the car or robot mode and I'd rather not see any of the original paint job.
