Well, I was not happy with my color choice of ACU. I bought it because this color pattern was on sale, and I figured if it's good enough for the army it's good enough for me... It wasn't... So instead of trying to sell it all off and loose money on brand new Tactical Tailor gear. I decided to spend $3.99 more and buy a bottle of Rit liquid dye in dark green and see where it took me. Total time was about 4 hours. that included tearing the chest rig down, boiling the water dyeing the gear, rinsing it, drying it all and building the rig back up. I boiled the water in a separate large pot (maybe 1.5-2 gal) Once it was boiling I poured it into a 5 gal bucket in the garage, threw a small pouch to heat it up then added half the bottle of dye and stirred it up. This was my test pouch. After about 30 mins of it sitting in the dye I removed it and rinsed it all off and set in the sun to dry. I boiled another pot of water and and added it to the 5 gal bucket, then added the rest of the dye followed by the rest of the rig one piece at a time. So total water was about 3.5 to 4 gals to one 8 oz bottle of dye. As you will see in the pictures some pieces came out different shades. I don't know if this was due to the time in the dye, the temp of the water or the different lots of nylon used by TT, or a combination of everything. Either way I am very happy with the outcome and actually like the difference in color. Plus it's not your average color pattern. In the pictures the back pack is also made TT and is used as a control object to help see the difference from before and after.

Throw your comments or questions at me let me know what you think.

First off here is a picture of before:


Here is a picture of everything drying in the sun. Note the back pack and the intermixed mag pouches as the original ACU color They almost look white. Also note the dump pouch on the bottom left and how much brighter it is than the rest the was the last piece to go in and the water was only warm by then, it was also still wet in this picture.


In this picture everything was dry. The small pouch bottom right was the test pouch. It was put in boiling water before any dye was added as the instructions said to do. Staring with that little pouch and working clockwise along the bottom to the actual harness and then back across the top is the order in which they were placed into the dye solution and taken out rinsed and dried. Note the dump pouch now top right of picture is not as bright green now after drying. As before the back pack and 4 identical intermixed mag pouches are used only as control objects


This is a close up of the inside of the harness, just showing the difference in color take on the same piece. the modular leg panel to the right was dyed after the water was completely cooled off note it didn't  take color very well


This picture is of the entire rig put back together the small pouch just to the left of the med kit is the test pouch and the dump pouch was not put back on the rig.


Here's the rig reunited with the rifle in which it serves. Note for color reference the stock, grip, VFG, and mags are FDE


Please wait for the camo comparison before commenting.

That looks great.  I've got a TAG backpack in ACU I got on sale, and might give that a try.

Now for the camo comparison:

Here is a pic of the back pack, a 15- 20 yr old OD alice rig with woodland BDU pants and the newly dyed ACU with ranger green BDU pants


close up of the woodland in a tree


far away of woodland in the tree


Close up of old OD pack


far away of OD pack


Close up of dyed ACU


Far away of Dyed ACU

There you go let me know what you guys think!!!

That looks really good..... I now have a plan for all my ACU crap after I get out of the State Guard.

Looks good

Looks better then original issue.

Texas has a State Guard component, I am not National Guard.  We train for emergency shelter management as well as other
missions as called on by our CIC, the Governor of Texas.  We do train sometimes with the National Guard.  We use UCP/ACU
uniforms and gear, so that dye job will work once I get out.

Google Texas State Guard for more info.

I wonder what would happen if you used a dark brown dye instead of the green....

IMHO it's a little on the dark side.  In the far away dyed ACU pic it has to much contrast to the surrounding foliage, which to me makes it stick out. It does sorta blend in with the bark, but a better representative picture would be to be wearing it and take a picture with you standing in the same area.
 

I was wondering the same thing, I will go pick up some dark brown and dye a couple of those mag pouches... if I like it then maybe I will do the pack.

I will try to get some more pictures of me wearing it.  The wife wasn't home so I had no one to snap pictures.... she laughs at me anyway

and yes that dark spot is the black padding inside the shoulder strap of the harness.

unfortunately my job isn't cool enough to get to wear camo and get it all dirty and beat up.... I only get to wear dark blue or international orange....

Nomex?

It sounds cool...until you've got no more clean uniforms to wear in garrison, and your SGM/1SG's "thing" are uniforms and boots.

 

You got it brother....I'm the one hanging out of the helo lowering the other homo down

Good timing. I was about to post a thread asking for dye color recommendations for a GI MOLLE vest with pouches in ACU that I picked up the other day.

I may go with a lighter shade of green for the dye though, since I might use a couple woodland shingles with it.

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You can post you pictures here when you are done, I would like to see how they turn out, or start your own thread I guess. Also just thinking if you get the dark green, you can just add less dye to the water and not leave the vest and pouches in the dye solution so long... that way if you decide it's to light you can put it back in or crank up the dye to water ratio... Just a thought..

Some of the top pouches that were died have the same camo pattern as a large watermelon.  Natures perfect cammo for woodlands.  That is a great way to change up the camo for different locations.  I like it.

that looks pretty good!

looks like it matches the ranger green pretty well.

Alright tried to die a pouch dark brown and it didn't turn out so good, pretty much came out purple. When it was wet it looked like a red-ish color, but dry it now looks kind of purple. I don't know what the hell happened



In this picture I dyed my new ATS war belt and 6P/ Leatherman pouch. Pretty pleased with the outcome. Again the center mag pouch is the original ACU color


I ended up dying my pack dark green because I didn't want a freaking purple one

More camo comparison

Ranger green pants, Dyed ACU Chest rig, War belt, and Pack


Me standing at the edge of the trees.... easily visible


Crouched behind the tree with the bird house


Standing between the two pine trees just to the left of the bird house tree

This is while wearing all woodland, Pants, blouse, and boonie hat and the old alice pack.

Crouched behind the tree looking back at the cam.


same position just not zoomed in


Standing between the 2 pine trees


Same picture just zoomed out

Good old woodland does a damn fine job I say!!

I seem to remember someone else on here using the green with a little yellow added and it turned out decent.

I was in Jo-Anne fabrics the other day and found this dye by a company named DYLON, anybody use that

I picked some up, but don't have a project at hand to use it. They have a bunch of different greens also.

Damn I didn't even see it when I was in there the other day, I would have given it a shot. maybe next pay check I can try. I still have three test pouches available.

Someone did ACU overdye a while back and it came out looking almost exactly like GammaPat.

Found the archive thread....
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=10&t=327407
Used Rit Taupe as an overdye which takes out the blue/grey tint and darkens it just a touch.  IMO you could almost add just a pinch of an orange or reddish color to warm it up just a little more.

There are 34 pages of previous information related to dying gear in this thread

There is a link to the Rit dye color chart and mixing formulas too.

I did my ACU rig with the rit dark forrest green. I like the way it came out.
RLTW

that's awesome, i want to do it to one of my assault packs

I haven't had a chance to mess around with my stuff yet, but I have a question.

I'm thinking about bleaching a pouch first to lighten up the original colors before dying, just to see how it turns out. Will this damage any of the fabric?

So is the concensus that Tan has a pink hue to it vs. the Taupe?  I'm having trouble finding Taupe locally.

I wonder in the above link, if the user got the pink variation becasue he added some dark brown to the Tan.  The dark brown certainly appears to be more red in color in the examples I have seen.

I was dragged to JoAnn fabrics by the misses (I swear!) and poked my head into the glue/dye aisle. They did indeed have Taupe liquid dye. They had a sign up saying it was 'new' so maybe it's not in all stores yet?

I finally got around to doing my Eagle RRV (ACU) with the Rit Dye Tan color.  Eventually, it looked alright.

I heated up 3 gallons of water and put half the bottle of Tan in the water.  I presoaked the RRV and then put it in the dye.  I stirred it for a few minutes and took a look.  It was looking pretty good after only a minute or two but I figured it would get closer to the color I wanted if I left it in longer.  I let it sit for another 10 minutes and went back to stir it.  I pulled it out to take a look and of course it was closer to orange than tan...

I immediately pulled it out and put it in the rinse water.  This lightened it up a bit and I figured after it dried, it would be even lighter...wrong!  Now I'm scrambling to get some of the color out of it.  I put some bleach in some hot water and put the RRV in.  I stirred it around and after about five minutes a good bit of the color was out of it.  I left it in for a few more minutes and then rinsed it in clean water several times.  It is currently drying and I think it is going to be just about right.

I'll try to get some pics up in the next few days.  

well let this be a lesson to everyone, just BURN that ACU crap, and buy something in the right color in the first place.









 

Here are a few pics I took this morning on my way out.  I do not have anything else in ACU for comparison so I put some multicam and OD pouches on for reference as well as the furniture on the rifle.  As I mentioned above, it actually came out pretty good.  The tan has a hint of red which actually matches our good ol' Alabama clay quite nicely.  The white and blue shades are definitely gone and once the pouches are all installed combined with a little dirt, very little of the actual vest will be seen anyways.

Got bored yesterday so I snapped a few more pics with the pouches installed.  

You can see the redish hue a little better in these pics.  I  also noticed that the tan areas are alomst a perfect match to the color of my Carhart jacket to give you an idea of the color.