Hey everyone! This is my first post but I’m a die hard GB fan and have been awwing people with my halloween costume for years. As always I want to make it as close as I can to accurate so I thought I would dye my flight suit. I have read some dyeing posts about this subject but they all mention Rothco, Tru-Spec, and I have no idea which one mine is.
Here is where I got mine. Does anyone know which one this is?
I had that same flightsuit a few years ago. I remember because I ordered it from the same site. I believe the suit is one of the massed produced suits, not Tru-Spec. I do believe you can use the same dying process that you would use for a Tru-Spec suit since the material is the same. I never dyed my original suit so I wouldn’t know for sure. Maybe someone else has a better answer since I’m sure many other members here has the exact same suit as you. Hopefully this helps a little.
It looks like a Rothco suit to me, but im not 100% on that. Not a Tru-spec for sure. Good luck with the dying stuff.. it’s a nightmare.. atleast it was for me. Let us know how it goes!!
I would agree it is a Rothco. I have a Rothco suit, and those have khaki zippers and the velcro where the name patch goes over the pocket.
The color they show there isn’t accurate though. They’re more yellow than khaki.
Here’s an exact recipe I posted:
You’ll need one box of dye remover, one box of rit pearl gray dye, and a level teaspoon of purple, also in powder form, if you plan to boil it. You’ll need twice as much I think if you plan to use the washer method.
It’s my opinion that you could probably get away with just soaking it in a plastic garbage bin overnight. That worked for the dye remover. And the dye remover worked when I dyed it wrong the first time. But I won’t be responsible if using that method leaves you with a dark gray or purple suit. I don’t see why it should though, the suit seemed to only take a certain amount of color and then no more. I left it in boiling dye for 30 minutes, and if it didn’t turn dark in that time in boiling dye, I don’t think it would overnight in cold water. Also the rayon in the fabric never took any dye. It stayed yellow. That’s what the purple cancels out. The fabric is half cotton though, and that’s what you’d be dying.
[edit]
Whoops, I meant my suit is half polyester, not rayon. Actually it’s 55% cotton, 45% polyester.
I suppose that suit you have there could still be a Rothco suit, but the fabric blend is different from what mine is, and the color may be different from what mine was as well.
If yours has more polyester in it, then it will take less color when you dye it. If your suit is tinged yellow like mine was, rather than a nice sandy khaki, then you may need to use more purple than I did to cancel the yellow out. Specifically, 1.5x as much. But that could leave you with a purplish suit. So you might want to dye it without extra purple, if it looks like your suit is yellowish, and then see how the color is. And then if it’s not gray enough for you, then dye it again in a half a teaspoon of purple.
I agitated it only a little bit and re-arranged it once ever 10 minutes (slightly pulled it out of water wrapped it the other way. I had to keep poking it under the water every now and then.
For dying it I am going to boil it on the stovetop with the galvanized tub. I have one questions: How much water should/can I use? I am going to use Ghost Guys ‘recipe’ but I didn’t see anything about the exact amount of water in relation to the number of dye boxes. Can I use as much water as I want?
You can use as much water as you want, but the more water you use, the more dye you’re likely going to need. People who’ve dyed their suits in the washer have used a couple packets of dye if I’m not mistaken.
However, they’re not using water that’s near boiling, which may be a factor in how well the dye takes.
I used a stock pot, so I dyed my suit in only about 3 gallons of water. It was packed in there pretty tight. If you’ve got that big tub, you’re gonna need more water than that because you’ll never get the suit to fully submerge.
That said, I’d fill that tub you have there halfway and try the same amount of dye I originally suggested. The thing you need to know is that the suit will only take so much dye. And one packet should still be plenty for five or six gallons of water.
The suits in the movie aren’t super gray anyway. You’re not trying to dye the suit gray so much as trying to dull the khaki. The suit should look pretty good once you’ve just used dye remover on it and dried it actually. (You don’t need to dry it, I just did so so I could see the result of the dye remover)
The only real way you could make a mistake is to use too much dye and make it too dark… or do what I did and try TAN dye and end up with a brown suit you have to remove the color from and start over with. Or do what I also did and fail to sitr the dye enough and end up with dark dots on the legs due to leaving some dye undissolved in the bottom of the pan. (The water turns black right away so it’s hard to tell if the dye has dissolved. Stirring it in a bit at a time may be the best method to avoid this.)
You can always redye it darker if you’re not happy with how dark/gray it is for some reason. Just save the dye bath and make sure you stir it well so as to not leave any sediment.
I’m actually looking at it right now and it looks pretty damn good with only using the Color Remover. Its lighter and looks less khaki. Someone just posted a link to a uniform used in GBI and it doesn’t look very grey at all to me:
I need to think about this some more but if I do dye it with the Rit pearl grey then I’ll probably do it in 6 gallons of water and maybe only 15 mins. I dont want it too grey or too dark. Like you said, I can always put it back in for a little while longer.
On a side note, what is the most screen accurate jump suit you can buy? And are those more heavy-duty (nicer fabric, etc)?
Did you dry it after the color remover? Cause it’ll be way lighter once dry than it appears when wet. When you dye it gray it’ll come out looking way too dark and maybe a bit purple, but as soon as you wash and dry it it will look perfect.
Don’t be afraid to dye it now just because it looks good with just the color remover, you can always use the color remover again later to get it back to the state it’s in now, if you’re unhappy with the result. I was definitely happier with it after I dyed it. Even though it was a nice color when khaki, it didn’t really feel ghostbustery enough when I was wearing it.
Oh, and did you remove the velcro name patch? If you haven’t, and you plan to (you really ought to) then cut the threads from the velcro side. That ensures you can’t rip the suit fabric. And the little pinholes left behind will dissapear when you wash it.
Also the dye will dye the velcro. Since the velcro on the Rothco suits is an ugly yellow color, that’s a good thing. I ended up with brown velcro cause I dyed my suit tan at one point. But if you just use gray/purple dye then yours should end up looking better.
Oh and the most screen accurate suit you can get is a real flight suit made from nomex. But nomex is really hard to dye. You have to wash it with something to remove this flame retardant coating, and only then can you even think about getting it to take any dye. I guess folks have been able to do it, but it’s not anywhere near as easy as the suit you’ve got.
The main difference is those suits have heavy duty brass zippers, much heavier fabric, and the zippers have little fabric pull strings on them. After finding out how hot you get wearing just the cotton suit even when wearing just a tshirt and shorts, I’m not sure I’d want a nomex suit.
To be honest I’ve never worn a poly/cotton suit.. I just dont like them. I dont think its uncomfortable in the slightest wearing a NOMEX. I’d say GB is one of the most comfy good looking costumes out there… Compared to the likes of wearing a Batsuit then its a walk in the park.
All of my GB suits are NOMEX, they take dye okay. The hardest part is making the fabric a lighter shade so it will take the grey better. Something that I have not accomplished. Although a straight up cold water black with the NOMEX seems to look all right, but not perfect.
I have just bought a new NOME which I plan on dying soon, so I will post progress of that when its done.
Yes, I dried it and with about 10 dryer sheets too. That was last night. I’ve slept on it (not the suit, the dyeing issue) and looked at it this morning and now I think it looks a little more yellow than it used to.
I’ll definitely dye it tonight cause it seems too yellow as I mentioned and I want it to be more ghostbustery for sure! Hehehee
Well, I can’t remove them. I epoxyed the velcro to the suit in both areas (breast and shoulder) so I could switch out the patches whenever I wanted with different names or GB2 patches. Now I suppose I could remove the velcro that is near the waist and the wrists but then wouldn’t I have khaki velcro and a greyish suit?
I think I might as well leave the velcro around near the wrists and waist on and let me be colored more grey.
I’m not too worried about getting hot. I’m a Godzilla fan as well and i have built a full Godzilla suit out of my first GB suit and believe you me, it’s HOT in there! Here are a couple pics:
It’s reccomended for the Nomex suits.. that’s what removes the fireproof coating. (NOW I remember!)
I used vinegar on mine, which is a homebrew fabric softener, but I did it cause I was hoping to make the suit look more “used”.
Used used EXPOXY? Does that even flex? You know they make fabric glue…
The only reason I suggested you remove the velcro was so the suit would stain the same under it, and because if you’re sewing or gluing the patches to the suit you obviously don’t want velcro where the name patch has to go.
I’d leave the rest of the velcro on.
Foam?! I can imagine! I was thinking the same thing about the foam and duct tape stay puft costume someone posted here a month or two ago.
I thought if there was any protective coating it would help to take that off, and it would make it look more ‘used’ like you said.
Heheee… yeah, I know about fabric glue. I used about 10 bottles to make the Godzilla suit! I may have used fabric glue but I bet I used epoxy to make sure it wouldn’t come off when I pulled a patch off. Yeah, it’s not very flexible but that’s okay for this suit. If I get a Nomex someday then I’ll sew the patches on that one.
I have been contemplating creating a Mr. Stay Puft costume but not sure if I’ll ever do it. I think it would be a great addition to a team of Ghostbusters though!
Here is the suit after it had gone through the color remover, washed, and dried:
I’m dying right now. Here is my recipe:
1 Large galvanized tub
6 gallons of water
1 box of Rit Pearl Grey
1 tbsp Rit Purple
VERY hot (not-quite boiling)
20 minutes
And here is the suit as I’m rinsing it after it’s 20 minute bath in the dye. It’s now off to the washer.
Here are the pictures of it now that it’s dry:
You can see that the original velcro (near the waist) turned purple and so did the white tag on the neck (OMG, The Ghostbusters theme just started playing! I have almost 4000 songs on my iTunes and its on random LOL!) I think there may be a tad too much purple… I think if I do this again I will not add the tablespoon of purple? I really need to take it outside when it’s sunny to really see how well it turned out.
Hm… Yeah, see how it looks in the sun. It shouldn’t have gotten too purple with the blend being only 35% cotton, since the polyester won’t take dye, as evidenced by the threads around the pockets of my suit.
I just noticed your zippers are square. The ones on my Rothco suit are rounded. That, combined with the different fabric blend leads me to believe that’s not actually a Rothco suit.
Also, the color of the zipper, which shouldn’t have changed when dyeing it, doesn’t look the sickly greenish-yellow that mine look… and THAT color was the original color of the suit. So your suit may have started out less yellow and more khaki. So the purple may have been uneccessary after all.
Give it some time, and see it under different lighting conditions. It’ll look much different in the sun than indoors at night. If you do decide to redye it, then try just the gray. Just about every recipe I’ve seen here calls for purple though. Maybe just about everyone has the Rothco suit though, or one which is more yellow anyway.
The good news is, if you don’t have a Rothco suit, then you have a good suit. Cause the Rotcho ones suck. One of my zippers broke off just drying the thing. And it feels like they want to give way when you zip them up.
FYI the reason the warning label on Nomex suits says to not use fabric softener is because fabric softener is flammable it leaves a flammable residue on the fabric, not that it removes the fire resistance of the suit…
The fire resistance of a Nomex suit is inherent in the fibers, they are synthetic aramid, and like Kevlar (another aramid fiber) it’s simply the property of the molecular makeup of the fiber and can’t be removed it is what they are made of, it’s simply not a coating or something that can be washed off…
Same thing with starch and dry cleaning they leave flammable residues…
Bleach (and probably dry cleaning) on the other hand actually destroys the aramid fibers, causing a molecular break down of the fibers thus they lose the fire resistance, and in time will fall apart…
