TVWBB Upper Midwest "Mini-Meet"


 
Jon Tofte

Jon Tofte

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
On Friday, September 27 four of us from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana got together for an afternoon of eating some great BBQ, shooting the breeze, swapping some grill parts, and watching how plastic trim parts can be dyed. Our host was @LMichaels who did some wonderful bbq pork shoulder, ready when we all arrived.

Get together Sept 27 - 2024.JPEG
@LMichaels (in front of the "BIG Z" the Z Grills pellet grill Larry used to make our lunch, @Bruce, @Jon Tofte, and @MarkCuda.

Jon and Bruce brought a bunch of old gray parts to be transformed into black with the magic of Rit Dye and Bruce's homemade stainless "sink" to soak them over two gas turkey friers to get the temperature just below boiling.

Here are some of the parts we brought:
Get together undyed handles.jpg
Get together undyed kobs.jpg.JPEG

Here are some of the parts Bruce did for me. They still need some shine with 303 Protectant. The nice thing about dyeing vs. paint is that the dye sinks into the plastic making it less likely that the old color will come through due to scratches. Black looks great on many custom grills (as well as the very early Genesis ones that originally came with black knobs) and the black makes old parts with stains useable again.

Get together dyed knobs etc.jpg.JPEG

Bruce will be posting some more "after" pictures.

We had a fun afternoon and all of us agreed it would be a great idea to revive the TVWBB Upper Midwest Meet like we had a few years ago. It takes a lot of coordinating to make that happen, so if you are interested in helping plan an event for next year, let us know.
 
Jon Tofte said:
On Friday, September 27 four of us from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana got together for an afternoon of eating some great BBQ, shooting the breeze, swapping some grill parts, and watching how plastic trim parts can be dyed. Our host was @LMichaels who did some wonderful bbq pork shoulder, ready when we all arrived.

View attachment 100875
@LMichaels (in front of the "BIG Z" the Z Grills pellet grill Larry used to make our lunch, @Bruce, @Jon Tofte, and @MarkCuda.

Jon and Bruce brought a bunch of old gray parts to be transformed into black with the magic of Rit Dye and Bruce's homemade stainless "sink" to soak them over two gas turkey friers to get the temperature just below boiling.

Here are some of the parts we brought:
View attachment 100876
View attachment 100877

Here are some of the parts Bruce did for me. They still need some shine with 303 Protectant. The nice thing about dyeing vs. paint is that the dye sinks into the plastic making it less likely that the old color will come through due to scratches. Black looks great on many custom grills (as well as the very early Genesis ones that originally came with black knobs) and the black makes old parts with stains useable again.

View attachment 100878

Bruce will be posting some more "after" pictures.

We had a fun afternoon and all of us agreed it would be a great idea to revive the TVWBB Upper Midwest Meet like we had a few years ago. It takes a lot of coordinating to make that happen, so if you are interested in helping plan an event for next year, let us know.
Click to expand...
Count me in!
 
Here are the handles. The ones with the yellow/green lines are ones that hit with some Aerospace 303. They need another application. The others are as they came out of the dye. The one with the blue arrow is one that had a white paint on it that I had to scrub off before dyeing. You can see it did not take the dye very well on the areas that had the paint before I scrubbed it. I may try to dye it again for a much longer time, but it is probably going to wind up in the trash.

1727625575498.png
 
2.5 bottles (7oz) of dye per gallon of water
6 oz Acetone per gallon of water.
Use a stainless steel container for the dye solution.
Add all ingredients at the start (DO NOT ADD THE ACETONE AFTER THE SOLUTION IS ALREADY HEATED UP)
Heat up to approx 200 degrees and then carefully place your items submerged in the solution. Stir the items around a little every 5 minutes or so to allow the dye to get between parts. Leave them soak for about 20 minutes and check them. Put them back longer if you think they need more time. I find a half hour is plenty good for the grill parts I have done. You can use a higher dye concentration as well but you probably won't need to. I use a pair of SS tongs to move the items around in the solution and pick them out when done. You can also tie a string or wire to them if you are only doing a few pieces.
 
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On the handles, were you just trying to darken them up a bit versus turning them full on black? It seems like the knobs and buttons really took it in more than the handles. I have been thinking about getting a PVC tube to dye a durawood handle in. In an attempt to get it jet black. If that works well I would probably give an attempt to the actual durawood shelf pieces itself.
 
Cant do that Cody. You need to heat the solution up to 200 degrees. Not easy to do in PVC tube.
I did a test run on durawood pieces. Total no go. I soaked them for about an hour and it barely tinted them.

The difference in the color on the handles vs the knobs is likely the lighting.
 
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