My team got new jerseys, and my old pants (Oilers’s Blue) didn’t quite match. I really like these pants (CCM Pro Returns) and they were still in very good shape, so I wasn’t going to replace them. I decided to try to change the colour instead. Going from dark blue to black shouldn’t be that difficult, or so I thought.
ORIGINAL PANTS
I wanted to keep this an easy, quick, and inexpensive project. I searched online for fabric dyes, found a few that should work, but didn’t want to wait or pay for shipping, which would likely cost more than the dye itself. I ended up buying Rit Concentrated Tint and Dye from Walmart. This dye is supposed to be suitable for nylon applications. I bought 4 packages, each package costing just under $2.
The pants were a 2 piece pant, so I took them apart, removed the lap shields, and removed the Oilers’ and NHL crests so that the dye didn’t make them inconspicuous. Incidentally, the seat/rear leg portion of the pant was double layer of nylon; very thick and durable. After washing the shell in a washing machine, I mixed up the dye in 2 litres of boiling water in a 20 litre pail. I tossed in the pant’s shell, pressed it down into the dye solution (more dye solution would have been beneficial), put the lid on the pail, and slowly agitated the pail to distribute the dye over the entire pant surface. After several hours I removed the pants and rinsed the surplus dye off. Once they were dry, I got to inspect my experiment. Foe the most part, the nylon accepted the dye, and the pants are black. However, there are spots where puck impacts with the pants have impregnated the pant nylon with rubber, and the dye did not soak in those areas. Those areas are not very noticeable since the puck marks are black anyways. The stretch material in the crotch and upper back of the pant shell did not accept the dye, and remain blue in colour. The embroidery on the front of the pant also accepted very little dye, and is now grey in colour.
DYED SHELL
SHELL, INNER PANT, AND LAP GUARDS
PANTS REASSEMBLED
Unless you get up close and have a bright ambient light or camera flash I doubt that few people will suspect that my pants were not always black in colour. They look dark. almost black, but I don’t know how long the colour will last. To be quite honest, I may never really be able to tell. While I had the shell apart from the rest of the pants, I noticed how simply they were constructed. If I was to use the lap shields from the pants I already have, I think the cost of materials for me to make a new shell out of new nylon and crotch stretch would be only slightly more than the $8 I spent on dye. I have decided to make a new shell for my pants. I’ll post the results once I’m done.
PART TWO
Seeing that we occasionally receive posts on the BB here inquiring about painting goal pads, I thought I would try a little experiment with the dye solution I had left over. Keep in mind that this was not a very scientific experiment under controlled conditions. I simply wanted to see the effect this dye had on synthetic leather (Jenpro and Robocop Weave). I just tossed in some scraps of Jenpro and weave into my leftover dye and let it soak for several days. I also tossed in a scrap of White Clarino (sold as Jenrino in Canada) and used in pads before Jenpro was imported. I agitated it occasionally, but I never bothered to monitor neither the solution temperature nor soaking time. The dye did not remain at an elevated temperature (which is conducive to dye penetration), and slowly cooled to room temperature.
Results: There was some change in colour. I also cut through the samples in several locations to see if the dye penetrated from one face or both faces of the sample. One Jenpro sample that soaked for a couple of hours changed from white to light grey, and the stain did not penetrate very deeply into the material. The other white Jenpro sample (which soaked for several days) turned a medium grey, with the dye penetrating almost through the entire thickness of the sample, but the dye penetration was approximately 60% through the back face of the sample, 20% through the front face of the sample, and 20% unaffected. The Clarino sample accepted the dye much better than the Jenpro. It came out much better, and the dye penetrated throughout the entire thickness of the sample. Robocop Weave has a metallic polyurethane coating applied to it. A white Robocop weave sample changed to a bronze type of colour, with dye penetration similar to that of the Jenpro. I also tossed in a Red Robocop sample. It turned very dark, almost black. The dye also penetrated right through the thickness of the material. I cannot provide an explanation for that.
SAMPLES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
White Jenpro soaked for several hours
White Jenpro soaked for several days
White Clarino soaked for several days
White Robocop Weave soaked for several days
Red Robocop Weave soaked for several days
All samples ore placed on top of a piece of white Jenpro, although lighting conditions may make it appear otherwise
What did I learn from this? If you want to change the colour of the synthetic leather on your pads with a penetrating dye such as Rit Concentrated Dye, don’t bother trying. Unless you are able to use a large pressure cooker and able to submerse your pads within it at an elevated temperature and pressure, you probably won’t have much luck unless you are changing from a dark colour to an even darker colour, and you are able to apply a sit there and brush on fresh, hot applications of the dye for several days, keeping the surface saturated with dye. Other dyes may react differently.
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