So, I thought I’d post this in case anyone else out there is wondering like I had been.
I’d Googled whether or not there was a way to remove the color from dyed, white Delrin to Hell and back with no apparent answer in sight. Finally, at the store the other day, I saw a pack of Rit Color Remover and decided to give it a shot. I had a set of LBD Rims that were my first dyeing attempt, that didn’t come out great. Another chance to get it right would be awesome.
Here is what the rims looked like before their cleansing bath:
The pink came out red, and the purple was nearly black; LBD “Fruit Punch” this is not
The process itself is fairly straight forward to anyone familiar with dyeing Delrin—bring a steel pot of water to a low simmer, pour in the Rit Color Remover, stir, dunk your Delrin in.
I will say, that I only used one packet for this test, and I’m very happy with the results. A mid to high simmer seemed to work better, as opposed to the low simmer from the instructions. I’d guess this is because Delrin is not a fabric, and the extra heat is required to open up the pores of the Delrin.
Because of the higher temperatures and the greater length of time in the near boiling water, I wasn’t sure if I needed to worry about warping. I decided to suspend the rims using junk yo-yo string and a large plastic spoon resting on the edges of the pot, keeping the rims from resting on the bottom of the pot.
To be on the safe side, due to the length of time I had to leave the rims in the bath, plus the higher temperature, I’d recommend doing the same to anyone trying this. Especially if you’re doing LBD or Mod44 type rims. A small warp can really mess up how they play.
I let the rims soak in their simmering bath for about 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. This was the end result:
Far more pastel, with quite a bit of white showing in areas!
Is it white? No. It’s significantly lighter, though. It’s kinda hard to see in the pics due to the lighting, but there is quite a bit of white showing in certain spots.
I’m optimistic that Round 2, with two or three packets instead of one, will take away another full shade or two—if not completely strip the color—allowing me to take another shot at dyeing these rims.
Given how dark and saturated these colors came out originally, I imagine Rit Color Remover would work similarly on any color dye, and saturation. Particularly if you, like me, did the dyeing yourself. Their website does say that results can vary based on the industrial dyeing process, so it may not work so well if you bought the item pre-dyed.
In any case, I thought I’d post this so there’d be a solid answer for anyone else interested in erasing, or correcting a bad yo-yo rim, or yo-yo dye-job.
Once Round 2 is complete, I’ll post the results here as well. Maybe this is as good as gets for how saturated and dark the colors were. Fingers crossed that isn’t the case, and I can at least get another shade or two lighter for a re-dye!