Flowable silicone coloring

I have heard that you can use acrylic paint to color flowable silicone, so I can create different colored response pads. Has anyone tried this, or do you know any methods I can use to color flowable silicone?

I say leave it as-is. I mean, I don’t care what color the response pad is as long as it’s working the way it should. It’s deep inside the yoyo and generally not on display.

I’m fine with clear.

My concern with using a dye would be that it would need to be thoroughly mixed through and it would affect the performance of the silicone.

By using an acrylic paint, I’d be worried about the same thing.

I’d say if color is important, learn your RGB color charts, buy Monkey Snot and mix to preference.

You can do this.


What would be the point.
Nobody can see it anyway and it may mess it up.

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Mixing acrylic paint into silicone makes it set up faster. I have used it with several drops of glycerin to make molds with silicone caulking. It only took a few drops of paint for half a tube of silicone (the size you use in a caulking gun) if I remember correctly. My guess is that it would set up too quickly and not work like you want it to with the flowable. Then again, if you already have it on hand, it might be fun to experiment.

The RGB system is actually only implementable with light waves. You can not make any color out there with RGB paint. The prime colors for painting are yellow, red, and blue. Which is close but for one color.

The reason these are the prime paint colors is you cannot mix them out of any other two colors. Excluding white and black. They also can mix into any other color paints can produce, I’m not sure if they can mix into black and/or white, but they can certainly get you every shade of every other color.

The reason electronic screens use the RGB system is that inside our eyes we actually only have sensors for these three color. So when you show the eye the right combination of green and red lightwaves, it interprets them as yellow. The yellow you see on your screen is not actually yellow, but the correct amount of green and red to trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing yellow.

So, basically, the RBY prime colors are used for paint mixing. And the RGB system is used for lightwave mixing.

If you’re going to mix monkey snot, get red blue and yellow :slight_smile: It’s what painters have been doing for years.

Thanks for the lesson in color mixing. I’m working of light waves, not pigments. I can see how my suggestion would be flawed.

(No, I’m not being sarcastic. I’m actually appreciative of the knowledge shared)

Thanks for all the help. I think I’m going to try it since I have both supplies on hand.

Let me know how it goes. I wouldn’t mind colouring my flowable just so that I can truly see how much I’m putting into my grooves. I would like to make my silicone slightly opaque before applying it.

I tried putting different things( like oil paints, acrylic paint, food coloring etc. ) in my flowable to change the color and every time the flowable set up super quick, was sticky, colored the string, chunky not smooth, and an overall horrible response system.but I found glitter and powdered pigments work fine! The next thing I want to try is Rit dyes powder.

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You got it!

Flowable silicone, unfortunately, has a habit of breaking off in chunks.
With the addition of things such as sparkles, more likely that your bearing will suffer debris problems.

If you guys haven’t gotten to using RTV gasket maker silicone, I highly recommend it instead.
It doesn’t break off in chunks and wears slowly like regular pads.
Also, if it wears down, you can just put another layer on top rather than removing the whole response area and you are golden.

I’ve had red break off in chunks. However, I am thinking there are different reds, because the one that broke off in chunks was kind of “dry/hard”, and the other ones using red didn’t come out super easy, but it wasn’t a disaster either.

I will say that I have had flowable tear off in chunks, but usually it just wears down slowly like a regular pad.

However, if I’m gonna silicone, I’d rather just start from zero, not add to something already there.