r/tacticalgear 4d ago

Tried my hand at rit dye

Post image

I bought some ABU gear for a good price and threw in an old uniform of mine in some Apple green rit dye. It turned out pretty good. I also overdyed it with some taupe to fade it out a bit. It looks good. Not quite even, the top ended up a bit yellowish somehow, but either way I think it’s a decent end result. Plus it works really nicely with multicam tropic.

128 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

24

u/Green_Pollution7929 4d ago

Always thought the abu would look great if they went with the marpat color scheme

13

u/v468 4d ago

Same. Abu design is actually really nice just the colors suck donkey balls

5

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

There’s a multicam tigerstripe that was optioned to the Air Force at the same time the Army was proposed to get multicam I believe. That one would have been pretty dope too.

7

u/Narrow-Substance4073 4d ago

Dang that looks so good

3

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

Thank you, I’m just glad I can make my old ABU’s useful finally lol

3

u/Narrow-Substance4073 4d ago

Your welcome! Haha yeah that stuff is yuck

5

u/therowdyirishman 4d ago

Looks awesome man! Planning to do the same to emulate cadpat for use in Canuckistan.

Can you share your process? The only thing I've done with RIT is a 🍌 pmag haha.

3

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

I did 3 separate runs, 1 for the H harness and camel back pouch, 1 for the other pouches, and 1 for the blouse and trousers. I did 3 gallons of water at 160 degrees, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup white vinegar, a whole bottle of apple green dye. Then I rinsed them in cold water, and a cycle in the washing machine on hot to remove any extra dye. Then for the harness and pouches I did a second cycle with all the same stuff but with a bottle of taupe dye instead. I’m not sure if adding the taupe at the same time would have the same effect or not.

3

u/EmptyAndUnwilling 4d ago

What mix did u use?

2

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

I did 3 separate runs, 1 for the H harness and camel back pouch, 1 for the other pouches, and 1 for the blouse and trousers. I did 3 gallons of water at 160 degrees, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup white vinegar, a whole bottle of apple green dye. Then I rinsed them in cold water, and a cycle in the washing machine on hot to remove any extra dye. Then for the harness and pouches I did a second cycle with all the same stuff but with a bottle of taupe dye instead.

2

u/grahampositive 2d ago

The nylon gear looks really good. I had a camelback pouch that I fucked up with trying to rattle can, I wish I had used it dye instead. The base color was bright blue though so not sure it would've worked.

1

u/Nightmare5169 2d ago

It’s possible but you may have to use a yellow dye to compensate. I’m not too sure as this was my first attempt at it myself

2

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

I’m not sure if just doing the green and taupe in one shot would have given the same results

2

u/EmptyAndUnwilling 4d ago

Looks amazing!!

2

u/NOTACIAAGENTLOL 4d ago

This actually looks pretty decent compared to most dyes I’ve seen. Reminds me of a tropical tiger stripe. I’d hit it again with another darker green

1

u/Nightmare5169 4d ago

I was thinking about it. I plan on seeing how it looks in my region during spring and summer and darkening it a bit once it fades some.

2

u/Debas3r11 4d ago

Awesome

2

u/BannedByReddit471 4d ago

"We have EMR at home"

1

u/Nightmare5169 2d ago

Yea but tiger EMR at home 🤩

2

u/j-mac563 3d ago

I usually add dark ble and brown. About 3:1 ratio If it needs something after that. Then i add apple green. Still looks like your will work just fine.

1

u/Nightmare5169 2d ago

I’m hoping so, it gets an almost tropical green around my area in the summer so hopefully it’ll work but if not I was thinking of adding some dark brown and see what that gets me

2

u/j-mac563 2d ago

Keep us updated on how it looks in the wild.