Using dye on the clear corners. Pics with black and red dye.
 

One of my clear corners developed a small leak. After washing or driving in the rain there would be moisture inside. After having to replace the bulb a few times I decided to replace the corners.

Having two extra corners gave me the notion to try something I've been thinking about for awhile. Dying the inside of the lens to obtain a new color. My assumption is that dying the inside will yield a sold color that will then have no worries about scratching off like tint film. No worries about dust flecks like spray on tint. And open a wide variety of colors.

I did a quick and dirty test run tonight using a diluted amount of dye. I simply heated the water in the microwave, added some black dye, poured the dye into the corner while it was in a bag. I let the bag sit for about an hour till it cooled off.

Now that I know the plastic will actually take the dye I'm going to see what a prolonged soaking in warm dye will do. Everything I've read up to know has suggested using the "cook and soak" method.

Here's a pic of the semi completed corner next to a stock clear corner. Excuse the blur, it's a camera phone.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...er/image-2.jpg

interesting idea
that pic is terrible tho, lol.

yeah.. pic sucks.. but since i'm using it only to show color change, it works. :)

pretty cool idea. Do it on the other one and take better pics, I'm curious to see the final product.

P.S you have a PM

That looks so light.........

that it looks perfect/ Yellow light will show through yet the outside blends into the color of the car or the accent you want to use.

Dye?

Blonds have more fun!

So far, so good. Now go darker!

I'll be going darker when I do it the correct way.. this was just a test run. I also picked up some red dye to try on the other one for you Socket.
I should have updated pics tomorrow.


jedi.. read the pm and followed the link. All i can say is that he was a missed opportunity for a perfectly justified abortion.


MM... bukkake!

30 mins on water just below simmering
use 3/4 of a bottle of dye to maybe 6 cups of water:


http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3.../image-2-1.jpg

thats nice laythor

Nice

whoa, you're onto somethin'.
Now install one and lets see it out during the day.

That's what I'm talking about!

Screw the day. What does it look like at night?

just put in the other clear corner... with a whole bottle of red dye. Should be ready in about an hour.

Wow thats looks awsome. Good Job I have spray tints on my lights and your look much better.

You will be my hero if the red comes out as well as I'm hoping. Will you be doing the meet on friday? I'll bring my camera and we can get some good photos.

90 minutes in full bottle of red with 5 cups of water. The red looks much nicer then my cam phone is able to show.:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...er/image-3.jpg

I'll come out friday so we can take pics Socket

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I figured with two extra I should make the experiment and save people some cost. Bottle of RiT dye is super cheap compared to tint film, tint in a can, paint, etc....

The longer they're in the deeper the color gets. I took out the black when it looked like it was going to be getting too dark to be useful as a light. I took out the red at the point it now looks exactly like the red of a tail light.

oh man. Why didn't someone think of this sooner?

I searched and searched to see if anyone had done it. Most of my searching turned up paintball guys doing this to their gear. I did come across some people on classic cars using this to revitalize old plastic parts but most of them had issues with the old plastic they were using.

After my few tests it seems it's just a matter of keeping the water right below a simmer as to not distort the plastic and then let the plastic soak up the dye. heat + dye = better result.

I almost didn't do this at all but after you mentioned that you'd want red for your car I decided to give it a shot. The black one is my old one that leaked, the red one is brand new. I think the red actually absorbed better then the black and this is probably due to the old corner having wax and environmental "stuff" on it's surface. It still came out great but I think brand new required less time. 2-3 hours total soaking black vs 90 mins red.

Now we just have to find out what happens to the dye after a few months of UV radiation. Thanks for doing this. I had forgotten entirely about this plan of yours and was about to order a can of spray tint.

that looks great... though not very reversible right?
too bad im back on ambers :)

It's completely reversible. Just take out the dyed corner and put your old amber corner back in. Done. :lol2:

Since RiT uses their dyes in industrial applications I would assume the UV exposure would be a minimum issue. http://www.ritdye.com/Rit+Professional+Line.20.lasso

It was this part that i assume is the reason most resources I found mention using their dyes.

After we take some pics I can leave them outside and see how they hold up. The paintball guys seem to have had good results with equipment they use holding up for years.

As far as being reversible... the only way to do that would be to buy new ones. :) You can dye the ambers black but I would think some orange would still show through.

After we take some photos, I'll get some dye and do one of my corners and give you my extra. I'm willing to buy new ones if anything happens. They aren't exactly expensive as far as mods go.

Sounds like a plan

That looks damn good laythor! How much did the entire Op cost? (minus the light)

bottle of dye costs 5 bucks. could easily do dozens of corners with one batch.

Damnit. Now how are we going to charge 50 bucks a pop to do this for other people! You just threw away a business oppertunity! :lol:

Thats awesome! I was thinking of just spray tinting my OEM corners, will that come out okay you think?

IDK, Id rather just tint mine than buy clear corners lol.

when you tint over orange you'll still see some orange. by the time you tint them dark enough to block out every spec of orange they no longer allow light to come out.


socket.. i'll delete the thread and we can start charging 125 bucks a set.

I dont mind a little orange really.

To be honest, I dont like Clear corners on VR, but I also do not like Amber on VR.

So I figure the cheapest solution is a nice tint on the sidemarkers.

Anyways,

/threadjack

You could always try using red dye on the orange corners to give them a red hue.

Good job. Looks really clean. Much better than tint or spray. If the dye holds up then you are really onto something!

i want pink ones! lol... what kind of dye is it?

Rit Dye, you can get it at any grocery store.

to get pink just use a tiny amount of the red bottle to 5 to 6 cups of water. You'd have to play around with the ratio of dye to water for pink. I'd start of with a table spoon... mix that with the water. Put in your clear corner and keep the water below a simmer for 90 mins. Check it after the first 15 mins.. then every 30 mins after that. You'll have a good idea of how pink it will be by the color of the water but it won't be exact. The water will be a deeper color then what the lens will be at the end.

If it's not getting pink enough add another tablespoon.. or even a teaspoon. It's very easy to get the color darker.. impossible to get it lighter. Once the first one is done just repeat with the second. Or you can do both corners at once.

Make sure to keep the lens off the bottom of the pot. I got lucky and found my pot was the perfect size to have one clear corner in and it would wedge itself between the sides with just the tips touching the edges of the pot. Make sure the whole corner is submerged and that you've got most of the bubbles out from the inside.

This is a great idea. I puchased the LED 3rd brake light that there is a GB on right now. I like it, but the chrome seems a bit brighter than the tails. Tinting would be too dark. The lightly tinted corner in your first pic would be about perfect. I'm going to try this on the brake light housing. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Let's see these on the 8 now!

I really like how this turned out. A blue one would be nice.

Well I dyed the brake light housing. I only let it soak for about 10 minutes and it tinted it just enough. I'll take some pics tomorrow, it's very subtle though, you may not be able to tell.

Just got back from meeting up with Laythor. They went to dinner, but after getting this shot I had to go change my pants. It's definitely not red red light coming through the bulb, as you can see by the red puddle light above. If you're worried about getting a ticket, it might not be the mod for you. A cop could argue that it's to red.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3372/...fbb1ae78_b.jpg

You might notice the corner is not properly seated. This is because the hole for the bulb had deformed just enough that we couldn't get the socket into it. After some quality time with a Dremel, I still wasn't able to get the bulb to fit properly in the socket. I could try and boil it back into shape, but i think I'll just use this as a guide to do my own, and I'll pay special attention to keeping the socket from melting.

As far as quality goes. The red lens is absolutely perfect. You look at it and say "you haven't modded it. It must have come from the factory looking like that." the color is completely uniform, and resists scratching quite well. you'd need sand paper to really mess it up and it would be a lot of work.

The black lens I'm not so sure about. when you look at it from a distance it looks just as good as the red one, but as soon as you start to look through the plastic, it takes on an orange brown hue.

could you run it under water and wash it with soap without the dye coming off?

800 grit sandpaper might do it after a while. The srubbing side of a sponge will just ruin the shiny finish of the coner. No effect on the dye at all.

As for the warping issue. It seems Laythor let them sit in the water for a pretty long time. If it is deforming the sockets, what I would try is using more dye and just less time in the water. Less room for error this way, it will darken them quicker so you might surpass the shade you are going for. Just throwing it out there.


Anyways, they do look AWESOME. This also seems to be a much easier, cheaper and a more permanent way of tinting the corners. You won't have a worry with the vinyl peeling off if you do it that way or screwing it up with the spray on dyes. It will also produce an even shade no matter what. Not like the spray tints which rely on the skill of the painter to evenly coat the lense, then still having to polish it to make it look really nice.

I think I figured out what caused the orange hue in the black lens... rust. This lens had some rust in it from the constant exposure to moisture it had been subjected to over the last year. I found a post on a restoration web site about the rust spreading out in the dye and giving an orange boarder to the project that guy had been working on.

I would suggest anyone doing this to make sure their corner is completely clean before they start. I was lazy and doing this more as a proof of concept so I didn't bother to clean out my first attempt.. which was the black on. The red corner was brand new.. so not only did it take the dye quicker (which I'm assuming is because it was free from all environmental contaminants ie. wax, dirt, smog, etc), but it also had zero rust.

As far as keeping the hole from deforming, I think this is again a matter of taking your time. With the black lens I made sure it was wedged into my dye pot carefully and at no time was the corner completely submerged... the opening was always about half way above water. With the red lens I had checked on it a few times to find it had sunk to the bottom. Touching the bottom of the pot put it in direct contact with the heat and made the opening go out of round.

Socket and I talked about it last night and I think the easiest way to keep this from happening would be to use a wire coat hanger to make a dipping holder. Bend the hanger so it straddles the top of the pot and comes then comes down in the middle. Bend a small hook at the end and use that to hold the corner so that all of the lens is below the water but the opening for the blub is not.

Close up of both corners in the light. The black corner did not have any problems with the socket deforming. So just take your time when you dye and it will be fine.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3466/...36b18287_o.jpg

I really like the red corner, will look perfect on VR. Oh, and to roxie8, I saw a magenta colored Rit dye that would work great for pink. Anyway, on to my project. Again, I just wanted to barely tint the 3rd brakelight housing so it looked like the chrome in the taillights and the brakelight matched. The chrome bezel around the LEDs was very cheaply chromed plastic and was much brighter than the taillights. I think it turned out perfect. These pics were taken on different days, but I tried to get the lighting the same. Don't mind my dirty car in the after pic, it rained the last couple of days.

Before, chrome is much brighter than the tails:
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/e...e/DSCF1152.jpg

After, looks like a match:
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/e...8/DSCF1252.jpg

One more in direct sunlight, it actually doesn't look like the housing is dyed, just looks like higher quality chrome:
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/e...8/DSCF1255.jpg

Oh, and just a word of caution. A little more dye makes a big difference. I had 2 housings, the OEM one and the one that came with the kit. I had a pot of water with 1 tablespoon of black dye in it. I let the OEM housing cook for 1 hour and it didn't dye it at all. So I tried the aftermarket housing for 1 hour also... nothing. I added about 1 more tablespoon and then soaked the OEM housing for only 15 minutes and it came out a little too dark. Cooked the aftermarket housing for between 5 and 10 minutes to get the above result.

Time for some daytime pics!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3498/...987b4bab_b.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/...987b4bab_b.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1150/...24afab00_b.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1071/...9a526bd7_b.jpg

While i was taking these i noticed that the red corner was deformed at more then just the socket, the entire thing has bowed outwards more then it should, meaning it wouldn't even properly seat in the corner location. Be very careful about the temperature of the dye. If it gets too hot, you WILL melt your corner.

nice pics socket... I'm thinking using a double boiler would be a good idea to maintain a lower temp and more even heat. Basically a pot within a pot.

That looks real good socket. Nice job.