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How To Stain PVC Pipe

Step 1 Gather The Materials

• “Clear Cleaner” is a product used to prepare PVC pipe and pipe fittings for gluing. Chemically, it is very similar to “Purple Primer,” but without the added purple dye.

• “Solvent dye” or “fuel dye” is an oil-soluble chemical intended for colorizing oily products like gasoline. I found one-ounce bottles of Rekhaoil Red HF, Rekhaoil Yellow HF, and Rehkaoil Blue HF from Narad Marketing on eBay by searching “petroleum dye.” Note that these dyes are very strong; one ounce goes a long way.
• Rekhaoil Red HF is a trade name for Solvent Red 164. Rekhaoil Yellow HF is a trade name for Solvent Yellow 126. Rekhaoil Blue is a trade name for Solvent Blue 98.
• If the color you want happens to be purple, of course, you might as well just buy “Purple Primer” and use it as a stain instead of mixing your own.

Step 2 Mix The Dye With The Cleaner

• Work in a well-ventilated work space and wear nitrile gloves and goggles at all times when handling the solvent or the dye.
• Using your volumetric pipette, draw up the required volume of each dye and transfer it to the container of Clear Cleaner. Be careful not to cross-contaminate the dyes.
• Here are the volumes of red, yellow, and blue dyes I added to 4 oz cans of Clear Cleaner to get the colors shown in the photo:
• Red = 1 mL red, Orange = 1/2 mL red + 1/2 mL yellow, Yellow = 1 mL yellow, Green = 1/2 mL yellow + 1/2 mL blue, Blue = 1 mL blue, Indigo = 2/3 mL blue + 1/3 mL red, Violet = 1/2 mL blue + 1/2 mL red
• Brown = 1/3 mL red + 1/3 mL yellow + 1/3 mL blue
• The “black” is actually very strong blue, with fully 1/2 oz (15 mL) of blue dye added to 4 oz Clear Cleaner.

Shake the cans well to mix.

Step 3 Apply The Stain

You probably want to rig up some kind of wire holder for the fitting instead of holding it.

Now you just have to let the pieces dry.

The original source article

All Images are from the source article.

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