# Rit Dye Picture Heavy



## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

A good way to get subdued clothing and tactical gear like pouches and vests is to use Rit Dye. The ACU camo pattern sucks in my opinion but you can get the uniforms and MOLLE gear at a reasonable price and to make it blend into the woodland environment is to dye it another color like OD Green. That is what I did with my ACU uniforms after I left the military. You don't even necessarily need military issued clothing. You can take a simple T-shirt or other clothing and dye that a subdued color.

Here are a couple color charts on how to blend colors to make colors.

*Post some pics of stuff you have dyed. *


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

OK, check out the above attached Rit Dye PDF Recipe files. I am using the OD Green recipe.

When I was in my later years of military service and as a Quartermaster or in simpler terms a Supply Sergeant we switched to the ACU uniform and was in the beginning stages of issuing ACU field gear.

I left the service in 2006 and before and after I have very strong feelings that the ACU uniform sucks. So a little more than a decade the Army started listening to its soldiers and is in the process of replacing the ACU uniform. In my experience and opinion the ACU is a Grey ghost colored camouflage pattern. I feel that in a woodland environment the ACU will stand out and make you a target.

Alright here is the Prepping portion of overcoming and adapting. On different avenues and websites you can find military surplus. ACU uniforms and equipment is a large portion of of that. Now if you dye this clothing and equipment to your environment it would make it more useful.

If you use ACU clothing and equipment as is someone may cry Stolen Valor. Personally I would just tell them to piss of. If you are not portraying yourself as a soldier and you do not have the US Army patch on the uniform they can piss off. Dying the equipment voids the problem.

OK, back to the program. I dyed my uniforms and equipment OD Green. When I dyed the stuff it does not just come out solid OD Green but there are shades. Really it all comes down to you current dye bath and how often you stir the pot.

When I made the first pot I had a brain fart. I used 1 for 1 portions of Dark Green and Dark Brown when in fact the green was ½ cup and the brown was ¼ cup. So there was way to much brown. I added one more green to try and even it out. I figured I would experiment because it was a F up. I did two drop leg pouches, a flash bang pouch which make a really good GMRS/FRS radio pouch and I put in a hazmat suit just to see if it would take the dye.

Make sure you read the directions very well and all other guidelines and tips. For example it said do not dye fabric with a rubber backing. The drop leg pouch had a rubber like backing and as you will see the dye did not take that well. 

I dumped out the bath and put in new water and dye as the recipe called. My first material was two sets of ACU's. It willed the pot and it was hard to stir. The instructions called for 30 minutes up to an hour and my average on all the following baths was 30 minutes.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

I dyed all of the TA-50 equipment at one time except for the two optical cases. Once the equipment was done I then did the optical cases without changing the bath (trying to get my moneys worth As you can see the optical cases did not darken as much and instead of being OD Green they are more brownish. In person they look OK so I left it alone. All I want was to get rid of the grayish tone.

In the after pictures you will see one untouched ACU uniform top folded up. Just a reference. As you can see some came out darker than others. Just to many variables to keep it exact. Amount of water, amount of dye, amount of time, amount of wight of material.

I think for the most part they turned out good. You can still see some shading but overall the color of Olive Drab Green.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

Here is one before and two after the dye batch. Just for a better comparison without having to scroll.*

In the last picture you can probably see the dye difference of the drop leg pouch. It is the one with the rubber backing. So what are your guys opinions?

Oh' Something else to consider is Guerrilla Warfare. You can use Rit Dye to subdue clothing to work better in a woodland environment or to try and resemble some type of uniformity.


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## RJAMES (Dec 23, 2016)

Thank you for posting this. I had not thought much about clothing like this.


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## RedLion (Sep 23, 2015)

I do not have pics to post, but I used Rit dye to dye 6 sand colored ar10 20 round mags. They came out nicely. I switched up using different colors including blacks, brown and green, including camoing two. It works great on Magpul mags.


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## RedLion (Sep 23, 2015)

Here is a link that has some good pics on what Rit Dye Pmags can look like. I have used the Brown, Green and Black rit dye on Pmags....

https://gunmagwarehouse.com/blog/cat/magazine-maintenance-diy/post/ritdye_Sand_Pmags/?utm_source=gunmagwarehouse&utm_campaign=e5297677ac-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_07_MOE_FURNITURE_KIT&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0d355b7f6d-e5297677ac-423957109&mc_cid=e5297677ac&mc_eid=1b4ff54746


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## LunaticFringeInc (Nov 20, 2012)

Hey dude how did you get that mottled brownish color on those two pouches to the right in that last pick? Enquiring minds wanna know!

BTW...Great post as I am fixing to do some Raffia Grass to add as garnishment on a Ghillie Suit.


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

A little off topic, did a net search and read posts here. Is there a way to dye blaze orange to something way more subdued? Net search comes up with regs on orange requirements. I don't hunt anymore but would like to use the hunting clothes without sticking out like a sore thumb. Thanks in advance. Really hate to give up on perfectly good warm clothes. Bleach the orange out?


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

1skrewsloose said:


> A little off topic, did a net search and read posts here. Is there a way to dye blaze orange to something way more subdued? Net search comes up with regs on orange requirements. I don't hunt anymore but would like to use the hunting clothes without sticking out like a sore thumb. Thanks in advance. Really hate to give up on perfectly good warm clothes. Bleach the orange out?


Maybe, send me a message to reply to the thread tomorrow. I took some medicine and I am getting nocked out as I type

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

1skrewsloose said:


> A little off topic, did a net search and read posts here. Is there a way to dye blaze orange to something way more subdued? Net search comes up with regs on orange requirements. I don't hunt anymore but would like to use the hunting clothes without sticking out like a sore thumb. Thanks in advance. Really hate to give up on perfectly good warm clothes. Bleach the orange out?


I remembered Rit had a color remover but wasn't for sure. I did a quick search

https://www.ritdye.com/techniques/the-basics/rit-color-remover/

https://www.ritdye.com/faq/why-did-color-remover-not-remove-the-color-on-my-garment/

The second link tells you no guarantee depending on the fabric and how it was originally dyed.

I watched one of their videos and it seems to work pretty good.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

LunaticFringeInc said:


> Hey dude how did you get that mottled brownish color on those two pouches to the right in that last pick? Enquiring minds wanna know!
> 
> BTW...Great post as I am fixing to do some Raffia Grass to add as garnishment on a Ghillie Suit.


The two big optic cases on the middle right? Those are the ones I referenced being on the tailend of a dye bath so there wasn't as much dye in the bath. They turned out more of a brownish color instead of OD Green. They looked ok so I just left them.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

My buddy gave me a bunch of uniforms to sell on eBay. He is getting out on a medical. He outright gave me Tshirts and thermal underwear but they are that sand color. I am getting two of the ACU pants from him. Once I get his stuff on eBay I'll post a thread on it if anybody needs uniforms. I scrounged up some more stuff that I already had that needs to be dyed like 2 new camelbacks in desert pattern and some ACU pouches. Once I get everything ready I'll add on to this thread and see how the new batches go.


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## HochwaldJager (Aug 31, 2017)

Best camo I found for my brothers and sisters in Cali....


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

HochwaldJager said:


> Best camo I found for my brothers and sisters in Cali....
> View attachment 64593


I thought they liked to wear black and cry fascist while they sucker punched people.


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## 1skrewsloose (Jun 3, 2013)

Well, bought the color remover, two due to size of coat. Two liquid black dyes, didn't read the small print, won't work on polyester. Bummer!

Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dye
Ended up fudging the zippers to get the inner jacket from the hunting coat which is the main source of heat retention, to fit another not so conspicuous.


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## RedLion (Sep 23, 2015)

A couple pics of AR.308 mags that I dyed. Started with sand colored mags.


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

I have never heard one person say they miss the ACU pattern. That will go down as one of the biggest uniform screw ups in history. Right along side the one the Navy did in the 70's.


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## MaterielGeneral (Jan 27, 2015)

Here is a bump for old time sakes.


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## Buttoni (Jun 2, 2020)

Just a word of caution on Rit-dyed uniforms/clothing that will be washed. The dye WILL run into the wash water every time it is washed in future and WILL turn everything light-colored or white in the load to that color (or a washed out hue of it). Been there. Husband doesn't like pink underwear. So be sure you only wash dyed items with like-dyed items. The gear/pouch items that won't be washed..........better, but even with those, the dye rubs off on your skin if you're wet/sweaty. Done a lot of Rit dying in my time and just don't like dying cloth much at all anymore as this problem is impossible to overcome. You can only reduce the color-bleeding issue using manuf. suggestions. Have gotten dye color-bleed on far too many pieces of white/light clothing to own up to. It's real easy to forget, when doing laundry, that a particular item in the laundry bin was dyed. Just sayin'.


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