Hey Zac! The reason you couldn't get the temperature much above 150 is that you were boiling off your acetone. Acetone has a boiling point of only 133F, so you were essentially distilling your mixture. The evaporating acetone was carrying the heat away as it converted to vapor. If you kept going, eventually you would have evaporated all of the acetone, and the temperature would start to climb again.
@@mitch3384 I think he means the mixture physically cannot be above 133f unless/until there is no acetone present. Like something with water in it can't go above 100c until the water boils off (at atmos. pressure)
I was literally trying to figure out how I was gonna do this the other day. Love DeWalt but wanted a blacked out impact like Makita. This is great. Now a glow in the dark case like makita
I was literally googling whether this was better than paint or exactly how to do this, with my tools, earlier this past week. Thanks for reading my mind and doing it 😂😂
Uau. I’m not the only mad. I’m changing all of my gears to the black decker only to have the chromatic orange all over. In my second house, in Sardinia, only bosh green! ❤
The craftsman’s plastic is a tougher polymer that requires a higher concentration of acetone. Acetone eats at plastic so depending on plastics it will penetrate at different rates. I’ve held both tools in my hands and dewalt always had a much softer finish that felt better in hand compared to the harder plastics that cheaper tool manufactures use. They could also be softer to be able to handle drops better as harder plastics tend to crack when dropped.
Man I been doing this forever but not dying just painting and such lol. Gonna try this for sure. I love blacking out stuff or changing up the colors. Just did a craftsman truck tool box, gonna post on my channel soon. All kinds of fun.
I like dewalt tools but getting tired of yellow. Switched to Bosch because they look cool and are just as amazing, even better. I gotta do this to my tools.
DeWalt's lower end batteries are already completely black so, ironically, in an attempt to make your battery look more premium, it actually looks cheaper. I would have kept the battery yellow and just dye the tool itself. The green DeWalt looks great, even if it wasn't what you were going for.
Maybe Sand the parts. You can see that the stain doesnt accur where there was stickers on the newer dewalt drill. So maybe there is some kind of coating that prohibits the paint from penitrating into the plastic
@@ArpadBuildsThis Ya the DCF887 is better in pretty much everyway, and the DCF888 is also out too. I was shocked to see the DCF886 is like 6 or more years old!
@@ZacBuilds I actually recently got a set of Milwaukee drills on Black Friday, they were too good of a deal to pass up, and I’m thinking of dying them the exact same way! I’ll talk to you more on IG if I have any questions, but I’m planning on doing the exact same thing with those
You’d probably have a better result scuffing the surface and rebuffing it after to open the pores even more and remove any potential coatings they may apply to them
I'm a contractor and DeWalt is 98% of the power tools that I have and I would most definitely like to get some special edition colors from DeWalt and I would possibly pay a LITTLE bit more for them, I'm thinking about trying to do this to my older backup DeWalt power tools and see how they turn out.
Hey Zac, super project! Never actually thought of dying plastic (besides spraying). One question though, the amount of leftover liquid (the dye+acetone mix), what is the most environmental-friendly way to dispose it? Dow the drain after cooled down? Or other ideas? Thanks and keep up the work mate ;)
Great question! My city has a local hazardous chemicals disposal facility. You can bring them anything and they'll take care of it for you. I just drained it into a container and brought it there
DANG! Revive DeWalt 18v? I might give this a try. But I would actually do it on my OLD DeWalt 18 volt tools that are scuffed up and sort of nasty looking. It seems like a really good idea after he said it appears the older plastic took the dye better.
@@ZacBuilds so I’m thinking that maybe the red dye that originally colored the plastic at the manufacturer had more pigment then the yellow dewalt. Idk dye does funky stuff haha
The difference in the two Dewalt colors may be because the acetone had boiled off by the time you put the second Dewalt tool in. Acetone has a substantially lower boiling point than water so it tends to leave first when heated. Unsure if this is the answer, just my thought.
When I started in construction work years ago, I found out the hard way that not everyone I worked with was "honest"!!! Meaning, tools would come up missing that I worked hard for so I could continue working. One day, on lunch break, and after buying a few new tools the night before, I laid all my new tools out in front of everyone so they could see what I got. Then I grabbed the cans of hot pink spray paint I got, and painted everything I had with hot pink spray paint!!!!! Not one of my tools came up missing ever again!!!! Also no one asked to borrow anything from me either!!!!
This was a common problem for smokers, having lighters pinched. It started out that you bought pink, but they went missing too. So I started buying brown, and worked for ages with a couple of sharpie markers to make them look like turds. That worked well. I had the same problem with people pinching my knives (bought myself, rather than company supplied, so, nicer) at my first freezing works. In the end I went and bought orange/yellow handled Swibo knives, the ONLY ones in the room, never had the same problem.
Another cheap trick is using duct tape & electrical tape on stuff. It could be as simple as an extension cord; few people want to take a chance to steal a cable that looks like it might've been damaged in one or two areas (the electrical tape "patches" lol) and will leave it alone. It also helps to hide or obscure any branding on things & add a, "smashed" look to it. Also, charcoal. A light touch with the smallest dust of charcoal can make even the newest shiny drill look like it's been abused in a mechanic shop (add duct tape in areas they tend to see most stress) & eventually you've sold the perfect idea as most would rather not gamble with what seems to obviously been a 'questionable' power tool, at that point lol. Edit: the benefit of charcoal is also that depending on where you smear some if it, you create what's essentially going to become a Fingerprint ID. If someone grabbed it in a way that's 'normal' (but not the way you use it), they're going to have black stains on their hands & clothing. Depending on the type of work, it'll also be a subtle flag as to who took it because their hands are dirty before everyone even got to work again lol. There's other stuff that can do the same, they even sell special chemicals that are UV reactive & not as easy to wash off (so you can hold a UV light & find who touched it hours later, even if they washed their hands with Dawn platinum several times in a row, for example).
You can actually tell what type of plastic the tools are made of, they have a code on the inside of the plastic clamshell that tells you what it's made of.
I'm SOO late! Sorry Buddy. This was a fun watch Zac. I think the black tool looks sick BUT one thing I think Dewalt "hangs their hat on" is when you see someone wielding a bright yellow tool they IMMEDIATELY connect Dewalt to that tool. I personally love my yellow wall of tools. 😂 Also 17:20...super clean transition my dude!
100% they pay a lot for that branding and to stay top of mind, but then again so does Makita, and they're willing to sacrifice that to give the people WHAT THEY WANT hahaha. Thanks buddy!
I get supplied Dewalt tools for work, I don't get the hype on why guys like them. They're weaker than competitors, and the batteries don't last as long as competitors. I can't even throw a diablo blade in my sawzall because the saw is too weak for the blade. The blade catches on the material and the saw bogs down. Put that same blade in my m18 fuel sawzall and it'll chew right through 3/4" emt. Dewalt is junk in my experiences on the job.
Red plastic takes A LOT of pigment, much more than the yellow, so red wont die as good. The green dewalt is probably BC all the acetone had already evaporated when you put the shells in, not allowing the penetration of the die. maybe a pure acetone bath BEFORE the dying process would be a nice idea
Like you I am a DeWalt fanboy. Try to only use DeWalt tools where possible. I even painted my shop black and yellow. But a Black Ops drill and driver combo set would totally take the cake.
Your acetone ratio changed due to boiling off of the solution. You could have prepared an acetone water pre soak without heat to prep the plastics. Then dipped into the acetone dye solution. Great look over all. The craftsman’s is my favorite one.
So im attempting to do this as my original acetone + Dye bath after 1 hour did not dye my plastics so after reading the comments I see that the acetone may have evaporated. I added another 8 oz safely while it was still hot and then covered it with a lid to see if the acetone can kinda stay. I also prepared a cold water + acetone bath to prepare the other plastics to see if this helps the process
Did this to my set this past weekend, turned out great, weirdly enough my drill also came out a bit greenish on the initial dye, but I ended up doing another soak with more dye and it turned out better the second time around
I'm guessing it only works with black or close to black dyes? Any way to take a darker red plastic to a lighter color? My "I guess I'm gonna type this comment instead of google" hypothesis is it will just all sum to a murky brown like I experienced during my finger-painting career. Black looks great, but high-contrast will save me years of my life from looking for them. This same brand has neon synthetic dyes. I'm gonna walk into a salon with arms full of plastic parts asking for a bleach job.
From my understanding there are certain combinations of colors you can create, but it isn't as intuitive as you'd like it to be. Unfortunately I think you'd have to do some experiments to really dial it in. But theoretically yes colors are possible
I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to soak the shells in a water-acetone mix before submerging it in the hot dye bath. This way yoou could achieve a higher dye temp and "open" the plastic shells without boiling off the acetone.
May look cool but I prefer my tools more visible so I don't forget or lose them or easier to find. Like for instance I buy chrome colored ratchet tools over black sets because if I drop a socket or something in a tight dark engine bay it is easier for me to spot. Also the bright yellow on my power tools makes it easier for me to find and gather up my power tools if I have them lying around when the lighting is low.
Just use a hydrofilm and actually have something with a little better personality and character to it. Painting is so boring unless your airbrushing something custom
Two things: if you heat it that hot, how much acetone is actually left? Also, boiling acetone is a tremendous fire hazard. I would really not do this unless you are outside and have a fire extinguisher and a non-sparking stove/tools
Hey, Try poly dye. I'd give I dye poly brand a try or Pro chemical and dye brand. I use those on all sorts of colored plastics for frisbees. Hope you give this another go.
Exchanging the housing to wood would be right up my alley… I wouldn’t have the skills and knowledge to pull something like that off. I really hate rubbery grips
