After seeing several posts on social media about dyeing skate wheels we decided to give it a go - and it was a lot of fun!
Here is the low down so you can avoid the pitfalls and successfully dye your wheels.
What you will need to know:
For this we used a brand of dye called "Rit" which is available online in the U.K.
There are two types of this dye - the all purpose dye and the "DyeMore" synthetic dye.
You will need the synthetic dye for this purpose.
It comes in a wide range of colours - I used the 'Super Pink' for this experiment and haven't yet tried any other colours.
Bear in mind the base colour of your wheel will also have an effect on the results of the dye.
You will need:
Rit "DyeMore" synthetic dye in your chosen colour.
Clean wheels (I put mine through the dishwasher before dyeing!) - remove bearings first!!
A plastic bowl that you don't mind being dyed.
Gloves! (My hands are still quite pink).
Do not use the dye anywhere that might stain as this stuff dyes EVERYTHING!
First:
Pour enough boiling water into the bowl to fully submerge what you are dyeing.
*Take precautions with the hot water as it is a scalding hazard! Don't do it around small children or animals etc.*
I used two kettles full of water to cover all of my wheels.
Next:
Wearing gloves - pour the contents of the bottle into the boiling water and stir well with a utensil you don't love a lot to make sure the dye is well dispersed.
I used the entire bottle.
Then:
Go ahead and pop your clean, bearing free wheels into the dye bath.
I put mine all in at the same time and stirred with a spoon. I kept checking them until they had reached a satisfactory depth of colour which took about 5-10 minutes.
Lastly:
Once you are happy with the colour of your wheels remove them and place them in a bucket of clean cool water to rinse off.
Leave to dry.
Finally: Enjoy your wheel's new lease of life!
You can see the results here using the same colour dye - due to the tan base colour of the trick wheels they turned a darker shade compared to the bright pink on the white base of the Krypto wheels.
I am really happy with the results - this dye works on fabric too so we now have all pink EVERYTHING!