Another dyed ULA pack

[Chris Scala]

I didn't wash the pack because the Mariposa was unused, but it has since been washed so I guess I'll find out the next go around. Dark Charcoal would have been fine, I just ended up with a very blue tone as opposed to a neutral gray.

[Chris Scala]

One last thing… WEAR GLOVES. I know this is kind of obvious but I didn't think it'd be necessary. I used a mop-less "Swiffer" mop handle to poke and stir the packs, but ultimately I had to handle them with my hands and the dye stained the crap out of my finger nails and the skin around them. It's slowly fading, but a scrub filled shower and multiple hand washings didn't really do anything. Just a word of warning to save yourself some distress.

Also, my tub had some dye stains on it immediately after (that weren't washed way with the rinsing), but a coating of Fantastik with Bleach took care of them in minutes.

[dan mchale]

Cool. It's good to know the Dyneema X coating can take that. That's a test I have not done! Thanks.

If anyone has one of our old white FULL dyneema packs or a new white Full dyneema pack, I would stay away from this heat method. We found that the coating was heat sensitive but otherwise tough. Proceed with caution. Getting a coating to stick to FULL dyneema is a different matter than to a fabric that is largely nylon. The dyneema won't dye anyway with this method and is why the dyneema grid in the photos of the ULA pack is still white. It is possible that the heat can affect the adhesion to the dyneema grid but not the base fabric – and this would just not show up for awhile but the coating could 'bridge' the dyneema fibers. Tests would have to be done to compare unheated and heated samples.

[Ken Thompson]

Two years. So far so good.

[dan mchale]

I did some testing and the Dyneema X Grid appears to be able to tolerate Boiled water. I poured the boiled water into a large bowl and put a large enough piece in it to subject to a 6" water column test overnight. It is still waterproof and the coating still does well in scraping tests and still looks unaltered under microscope. The coating did lose some of that surface sheen and slickness however. Because a change of some kind is obvious, I would not recommend the process. There could be some depletion of the silicon/urethane coating but it would take a very accurate scale to discern this I think. I will keep working on it.

In the meantime I have decided to sell some excess 4.2/4.4 oz/meter dyneema X grid for $15.00 per running yard. This is first rate stuff of course (not seconds – have not heard of seconds in X grid ). Do-it-yourselfers only please. Color is dark gray.

[Chris Scala]

Hey Guys!

So as my above post stated, my packs came out blue. Very confident this had to do with my impatience in boiling water (i.e. it wasn't hot enough).

I threw caution to the wind and bought another bottle of black dye, but also a bottle of "Tangerine", which although the dye looked red, was supposed to be a deep orange. Using basic color theory, I thought that the orange would neutralize the blue. Well either the boiling water did the trick this time, or a combination of both, because the packs came out great.

I used one black and one tangerine to re-dye both my Mariposa and my Kumo. If you strain you can make out a cool-tone to the charcoal color, but barely. Good enough for me anyway.

Here's a picture of the Mariposa.

Since the factory spectra cord for the lid got dyed black, and the spectra lost it's sheen, I replaced them (quite easily) with some left over Big Sky Guyline, though it looks very similar to Triptease. I think the gold on the gray looks really cool. I also removed the GG logo… not out of disrespect or anything, as I'd gladly sing the praises of this pack to anyone I encounter, but because I really like minimal branding on things, especially backpacks. (So glad I don't have to stare at 50 Osprey logos anymore.)

So, in short:
– If you're gonna do this, do it right the first time.
– 1 to 2 bottles of dye.
– Use boiling water.
– I recommend doing this in a shallow tub rather than a bucket. Reason being, I had to stuff my packs in that bucket and stir them up in a big tangled mess. They came out with no damage (though the foam in one spot got kinda bent the wrong way) but I feel like it's unnecessarily hard on them. It would also be easier to make sure everything is submerged this way.
– If you have any spectra cord or similar, it will take the dye. The reflective bits might not, but they seemed to dull out after doing mine.

[Brian Johns]

Looks really great. Man, you're killing me. I'm an apartment dweller with only a stand up shower. How do I get enough boiling water up to the roof? And would a five gallon bucket work for this?

[Chris Scala]

No fear man.

Use a 5 gallon bucket in your stand-up shower. No tub necessary. I meant tub as in Rubbermaid kinda thing from Walmart or Target, not bath tub. A bath-tub is overkill IMO.

Just use a big pasta pot to get your boiling water. I used a big one and a sauce pan together for all my water, then added a little from the hottest setting on the shower.

Make sure you wear gloves though, otherwise your nails will get dyed for a week… and keep some Bleach based cleaner on hand just to spray on any stains in your shower afterwards. It won't stain permanently at all (far from it), once the bleach hits it, it already starts washing off.

[MFR]

So, my understanding is that anything nylon takes the dye. How about the stretch mesh pocket or the elastic cuffs on the pocket? My wife has a couple of UL packs that she's interested in but hates the colors. Black would only make it worse in her opinion, so we're thinking about dying whatever she decides a more vibrant color, something to her liking.

[Chris Scala]

Well it's really hard to tell if the mesh took the dye, because it was black to begin with… however, I really doubt it did. Same for the cuffs.

I think the outcome really depends a lot on the water's heat, the amount of water, and the original color of your pack. You're not going to be able to go green to red, for example. Gray is the most ideal base color since it will allow you to do pretty much anything… so long as you take into account the 30 – 50% gray muting the color a little bit.

FWIW, when mine were blue (unintentionally) they were a very nice blue. So I know for a fact that's possible.

[MFR]

This has also got me thinking about some fun MYOG applications. Instead of hunting around for different colors of a fabric, just buy all one color (preferably from the most reputable or least expensive source) and dye the pieces once you have them cut. That could actually be quite fun for some nice combinations.

Any ideas how VX-21 or VX-07 would take the dye? How about 70D PU-coated nylon?

[Chris Scala]

I actually am unfamiliar with those fabrics, I only knew Dyneema would work based on the experiences listed here…

But your idea is awesome! If you could find everything in a light neutral color, then you could really customize the crap out of it. Also, using raw fabric would be much easier to dye and work with than an entirely assembled backpack full of foam and other areas that you don't even need to subject to the process.

[Author]

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