Dyeing molle II web gear?

[gandalf23]

I've ended up with quite a bit of three color desert molle II gear. It matches the Army's recent DCU. After the chocolate chip desert camo but before the new ACU. Some was from my cousin when he got issued new stuff in ACU, the rest was cheap at the local surplus place or on the internets (or in some cases, stuff I ordered in woodland, but came in DCU grrrr...).

While I am in Texas, I'm not in the desert, so I was thinking of maybe dyeing the gear a darker brown or a grey/green color so that it would blend in better here in North Texas.

Anyone tried that? How did it work out?

I notice that FM 21-15 says not to dye the old style alice web gear, and that the .pdf I found from SDS says not to dye their molle II gear, but neither says why. Will it degrade the fabric? Or will the fabric not take a dye?

In the past I dyed some old canvas mail sacks green and spray painted them to make nice camouflage sacks, but the paint on all of them flaked off real quick. I assume that painting the molle II gear will also not work so well, so I have not tried it. Most of the stuff I have is made by SDS, the rest is by Michael Bsomething, if that matters.

Also, assuming that dye will work, is Rit dye pretty good or is something else recommended?

Thanks!

[ButchS1066]

Primary question is what type of fiber the web gear is made from. I'm guessing it's some form of nylon, which is dyeable. According to this FAQ, nylon requires an acid dye.

It's been my experience that RIT gives weak results, except when you get it on something you didn't want to dye.

RIT does contain some acid dye, and since all you want is to darken up the web gear it might work for you. Just pick a darker version of whatever color you're after.

[gandalf23]

Well, I also asked on sippseystreet, and was directed here http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b ... 564&page=1 which then lead me to http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=6&f=10&t=277218

Both had pictures of dyed FLCs, and one that painted his.

Apparently dying the fabric will make it no longer IR stealthy. Several people cautioned against dying the gear because of that, but I'm not sure how stealthy it was to begin with, and more importantly I'm planning on using the setup for three gun matches and not taking on IR equipped terrorists.

This is not a picture of mine, it's from the AR15.com thread above:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2478/353 ... db25_b.jpg

Last night I dyed two of my DCU FLCs, along with most of the DCU pouches and whatnot I had. One half was dyed a mixture of one packet of dark green and a lot of a bottle of dark brown rit dye. The other half was dyed with one packet of dark green, and a little bit of dark brown liquid dye. Also used a cup of salt and two cups of isopropyl alcohol in each, and added it all to three or so gallons of almost boiling water in a 5 gallon bucket. Weighed them down with bricks and stirred for half and hour or so. Rinsed them out with the garden hose for a while, then left them out to dry over night and all today in the garage.

The green ones kinda look like the above picture, the browns look kinda brown. It's funny, the backside of all the pouches and the FLC vests came out a "better" darker and more even color than the front. But I think that they'll all work. Plus the splotchyness should add to the camoflague. And really, almost anything was better than how it looked tobegin with. (at least around here)

I'll try and get some pictures up soon, but I left my camera at the office, so it'll be tomorrow night at the earliest.

[ButchS1066]

Cool, that's a lot better result than I'd expect.

You might want to soak it in warm water for a while to make sure all the cotton dye part of RIT is rinsed out.

[gandalf23]

Pics!

One vest dyed green, along with one mag pouch dyed green and one dyed brown. Original un-dyed three color mag pouch to show the difference in color, and a couple of woodland camo mag pouches, too:



Vest dyed brown. A couple of flashbang pouches (perfect size for small flashlights) dyed green and brown and a canteen pouch that is dyed green. Two Blackhawk pouches, too, one coyote and one OD, and an Endom Sewer Green mag pouch, to show the difference in colors.



Bigger pics can be found here.

I may re-dye some of the green stuff, as it's still a little too light I think, but it's tons better than it was if I'd left it three color desert.

[Combat Controller]

Pretty cool. Give us the recipe in case we want to do it ourselves?

[gandalf23]

Into a 5 gallon bucket I mixed:

For the brown color:
about 3 gallons of HOT (almost boiling) water
1 package Dark Green powder Rite Dye
about 1/2 cup Dark Brown liquid Rite Dye (1/2 of 8 fl oz. bottle)
1 cup of Salt
1 pint of 70% isopropyl alcohol

Soak the FLC or whatever webgear you are dyeing in the bucket while stirring every few minutes and keeping the FLC submerged completely. I used a large rock from the garden to keep the stuff submerged, and the cleaning rod from an AK to stir with. For the brown color I let it soak for 30 minutes.

Then I dumped out the mix and put the gear into another bucket that I ran cold water in from the hose and did that until the water in the bucket was clear.

For the green color:
about 3 gallons of HOT (almost boiling) water
1 package Dark Green powder Rite Dye
a dash of Dark Brown liquid Rite Dye
1 cup of Salt
1 pint of 70% isopropyl alcohol

I probably should've used another package of green to make it a darker green.

Soak the FLC or whatever webgear you are dyeing in the bucket while stirring every few minutes and keeping the FLC submerged completely. I used a large rock from the garden to keep the stuff submerged, and the cleaning rod from an AK to stir with. For the green color I let it soak for about 45 minutes as the mix was a bit weaker than I wanted and I wanted as dark a green as I could get.

Then I dumped out the mix and put the gear into another bucket that I ran cold water in from the hose and did that until the water in the bucket was clear.

You could rise it in the washing machine, but I knew there would be yelling and upsetness for "ruining" the washer, so I just stuck to a bucket and the hose. It worked.

My hands ended up quite stained as I foolishly did not wear gloves. But a little Go-Jo soap and most of the staining was gone that night, and the rest gone in the morning. Go-Jo is awesome stuff!