Does anyone know how to make a clear canopy "smoked"?

I tried "rit" dye, but the plastic apparently isn't porous enough to accept the dye.

Thanks, Jason

I believe Testor's has a semi transparent/translucent spray paint in a couple of colors.

yeah go to the car side of the hobby shop and get Pactra's car body paints in smoke or dark purple. Take a cardboard box and mount your canopy upside down in the box and tape the edges. Lightly spray on a coat and turn the box over and place it down on a table right side up because if you dont and you got a little heavy with the first coat it will puddle in the top of the canopy when its left upside down. Do that with each successive coating and you can get as dark or light as you want.


best of luck to you

JDS

Rit Dye will work, it's what I as well as many other users have used. The key is that the dye must be warm. Get the dye warm, and dip the canopy into it, keeping the dye moving all over the canopy so that it doesn't sit in any one place for a long time. Just kind of slosh it around for a few seconds, remove the canopy and rinse with cold water. Repeat until you get the darkness you desire. Use black liquid rit dye. Use most, if not all of the bottle in your pot of water.

Tried Rit dye. The directions I got Was to bring water with dye to 140degrees. then dip canopy. This did not work. the heat just curled the canopy beyond use. If Rit does work, please discribe the process fully. Tried a second used canopy with the same results.

This thread should answer your questions.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_94.../tm.htm#948245

The canopy can't be PVC or the dye will not take. It has to be poly carbonate plastic to accept dye.

Add a cup of vinegar to the water, this will act as a cleaning agent and as it is an acid it also 'etches' the canopy to allow the dye to penatrate. I extencively use the dye method and have not found a canopy that does not tint with this method. You water should only be about 80*f as well.

I am with cap 10b, use the tint from the car guys. I use the Pactra brand, racing finish, window tint. It can be a little runny so you have to watch it. Sounds like cap 10b has figured out a good way to apply it and it looks great too!

I am also with Cap10b. I tried several times to tint a canopy by following the info on one of the threads on here. By the third canopy I finally got one to work but the tint process more or less destroyed it too. (caused it to have spider cracks in the plastic) The problem is sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You have to get the solution warm enough to except the dye but not too warm to melt or distort it. It's a pain in the butt to me. I paint mine now.