OK somone had a go at dyeing my white belt and the Online Sports pads and it hasn’t worked.
The belt has gone just off white.
The pads themselves have gone slightly off-white but the elastic has gone a light blue colour.
I’m now wondering whether to try dyeing them again with a darker dye to see if that helps (which I don’t think it will as apparently these were tried twice and when they came out of the dye they were a nice grey colour but when they were washed to remove the excess it washed most of the dye out).
Other options I guess are some sort of fabric paint or normal spray paint but I’m a bit wary in case the colour bleeds onto my flight suit.
I’m hoping there’s others “out there” with the same pads/ belts that have had better success so if you can help I’d love to hear from you.
With my elbow pads, I de-stitched the elastic and sewed cotton panels on instead. The fabric dyed very well, but the actual foam pad didn’t change colour at all. I was thinking of painting the pad with fabric paint.
UKGB - we have a brand of dye called Rit that is sold in grocery stores/fabric stores. I’m not sure if they sell that in the UK, but maybe a similar product is? At any rate, the Rit comes in a “pearl gray” color that is amazingly close to the color in the movies. My belts turned out wonderful. The elbow pads were ok, too, but I eventually darkened them further with some black dye. ~5B
I tried dyeing me pads with RIT pearl grey dye, for the most part the arm bands dyed great, but the “bubble” itself was still left pretty white… Out of frustration I grabbed a spray can of grey automotive primer and sprayed them. Believe it or not they look pretty good.
y’know guys, I wouldn’t surprised if the prop dept meant to make the elbow pads black, dying them black, then changing their mind and making them as light as possible…from what i’ve read about the original ideas for the movie, most things were going to be black, like the Ecto-Mobile for example…so maybe they meant for that…I dunno…dumb idea I guess, just thought i’d throw in support for the dye black then wash grey idea…ok …that’s it
Hay Cliff, what if we added some black dye to the grey dye to make a darker grey, then should wash out to a nice grey perhaps?!?!? So we can get our pads n belts sorted
Taking ecto_skywalkers advice, I just sprayed my elbow pads with grey paint. Turned out pretty good. Sprayed it with two coats, the first coat I sanded to get rid of the pilling from the wool, second coat looks good. Not exactly the same colour as the real deal though.
Well I tried dyeing these again over the weekend. I tried both the “dip for a few seconds” then rinse under cold water, repeat method and the dip for longer then rinse method (I even left them in soak over night).
The belt has definetly gone darker but it’s a very light grey. The pads are slighter darker but again a bluey grey. So that’s dye out the window. I’m now going to try fabric paint and see if that makes any difference.
UKJB. You GOTTA use black RIT Dye on the pads. Soak them in it and when you wring them out they should be gray, closer to those in the SECOND film. Me PERSONALLY, I’m fine with that because though the pads in the first film were DARK gray (they looked like they’d been dyed black and then faded), the ones in the second were a bit lighter like the ones I’ve got (both on the herringbone-original patch and GB2 patch- and dark gray flightsuits). The band was medium grey and the padding was a light grey. If you want to get creative you can paint them dark gray, as others have said, or try something else. I decided to just not fuss about it and leave them a lighter gray. Check my profile for pics and you’ll see. For the BELT I actually dyed it BLACK, as with the pads, and then held it under running hot water while wringing it out. That washed much of the black out and left it a medium gray, which is accurate. Though my hands were in sad shape afterwards! P.S. Make sure if you use the pads from Ebay you either trim off the extra material from the band or fold it under when you put them on. The band should not be any wider than the pad itself.
Many thanks for the reply and advice (nice suit by the way ).
I can’t get hold of RIT dye over here in the UK so what I’ve done is to mix some black and white fabric paint together to form a grey which I’ve painted on the pads. Once it’s dry you’re then meant to use a very hot iron for a couple of minutes to set it (which is fun on the actual pad itself ).
Anyway, I gave the pads (not the arm bands) a coat of black this morning, ironed it this afternoon and then mixed up and applied the first coat of grey. In the morning I think I’ll iron again then give them a second coat.
I’ll then add some more white to my paint to make the lighter grey which they appear to have done for the elastic and the belt. I’ll give these a couple of coats as well and see what happens.
I guess the real acid test will come when I run them under the tap to see if any excess comes out (or knowing my luck all of it). I don’t plan on getting the suit wet at any point but you never know and with sweat who knows - last thing I want is to dye my suit.
To get your suit the correct color (or similar) you’ll need to dye it. Have NO FEAR. I was hesitant to do so when I bought mine, but it came out great in the end. I just put the suit in the washer with a pack of rit dye mixed in and ran the cycle. I did that three times (two full packs and one half a pack). Dye it little by little so as not to overdo it. I just did it a pack at a time til it came out the way I wanted it. As for the RIT dye-you can buy it directly off their website. I believe it’s ritdye.com, but you can just do a yahoo or google search. It’ll yield the best results when dealing with the belt and uniform itself.
UPDATE - Painted everything what I thought would turn out grey but instead it’s turned out a darker blue and a lightish grey/ blue. So back to the drawing board - just applied another coat after realising this stuff dries a lot darker than when it’s wet.
OK the fabric paint didn’t work so I met up with Dr. Higgs over the weekend and we ended up doing the following with our pads and belts:
o Using just regular grey primer to give the belt a dusting (this was also to cover up the rust that had leaked from the metal eyes on the belts where we’d tried to dye them)
o A couple of coats of grey primer on the pad elastic to make then slighlty darker than the belt
o A sweep of black on the pads themselves just on the grooves (some of the definition being lost on mine after I’d applied a couple of coats of fabric paint) then over sprayed with a coat of darker grey.
o Masking off and spraying a couple of coats of black to give the black square effect on the insides (saves sewing the black material on )
I’m pleased with the result now and I’ll post pictures when I get a minute.
As some people have pointed out to me, depending on which reference shots you look at the colours vary greatly and in some shots the pads do look more of a bluey-grey than a proper grey which makes me think they had similar fun maybe creating these
So from my personal experience dyeing and fabric paint doesn’t work but maybe it will for you.
Hi guys, I know that some people here have some problem to dying the pads. I bought a pad kit one week ago on onlinesports.com. I bought a white kit (regular size). Some people here talk about paint it grey to give them the right color. The paint give a rought look I think so I try to dye mine. I bought a product who’s call TINTEX (we have it here in quebec canada but I don’t know for the US or UK). I took light grey. I fill the sink with about 2inch of very very very hot water. I put the dye in the water. (dont forget to wear gloves :P) Just put the pads in and let it soak a little bit. Dont rinse and dont sqeeze it. Just take out the pads and put it on a couple of towel (or something like that to prevent that water cross it and stains something) Let it dry with a fan. (dont put it in the dryer to avoid to reduce it) and look what it give me
Thats interesting. Can I ask though, what happens when the pads get wet later either from rain or sweat (the inner elbow is a sweat point, especiallt with a bulky pad around it).
Id test to see if the excess dye comes out under those conditions with the dye you found. IF it does you dont want it ruining your suit.
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