Some chemicals for a change
2010-Jan-28, Thursday 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chebeIt's not just blinky LEDs and microcontrollers that amuse me. Recently I've gotten into modifying tshirts. And since school I've had a thing for chemistry. Luckily for me the two go together quite nicely. I present to you 'smart' pigments:
Hmm, not very interesting, here, let's try some UV light:
Ahh, that's better. What are you looking at? Well, those five vials with the labels are black light pigments. The unlabeled one beside them is glow-in-the-dark pigment, and the coloured ones in the small syringes are thermochromatic concentrated paints. Meaning that they change colour based on temperature. These specific ones go clear (revealing the base paint colour) at about 27 degrees Celsius. The large syringes contain acyclic base, which dries clear. The starter pack also comes with a couple of plastic petrie dishes for mixing.
Well, how could I possibly resist? I took my hackerspaces name, and found some pretty letters, and using tracing paper and a fabric iron-on transfer pencil, transferred the main outlines to a plain grey tshirt.
I found the image didn't transfer cleanly, but persevered. I mixed up the paints with the base acyclic supplied and painted the squares with purple black light pigment and the outlines of the letters with glow-in-the-dark pigment. (The powders make for a fairly gritty concoction, but it's still usable.) This is when I discovered that the base acrylic paint dries clear, so I painted the letters with pink thermochromatic paint mixed with silver fabric paint. When it came to filling in the fine details I found that the fabric paint tubes nozzles were too wide, and my paint brushes too unwieldy. So, in a moment of innovation I covered the base of the nozzle with Blu-tack and pushed on a 5mm nozzle I'd previously purchased for henna. My hand is very shaky, it's been a while since I tired to copy a design free-hand, but for the purposes of this prototype tshirt it's all good.
The finished design:
Now, expose to UV light, then turn off the lights:
(Yes, that was a snap from earlier in the process, but I couldn't get a clearer picture.) I should have realised this earlier, but the purple blacklight pigments are not visible for me under UV light, because the grey tshirt glows itself anyway. I'll have to try them again on something darker.
Now, put the tshirt on top of the radiator and watch the pink drain away leaving only the silver fabric paint:
I reckon it's pretty snazzy, and at least now I have something to wear to the AGM. Oh, the possibilities for the future :)
Hmm, not very interesting, here, let's try some UV light:
Ahh, that's better. What are you looking at? Well, those five vials with the labels are black light pigments. The unlabeled one beside them is glow-in-the-dark pigment, and the coloured ones in the small syringes are thermochromatic concentrated paints. Meaning that they change colour based on temperature. These specific ones go clear (revealing the base paint colour) at about 27 degrees Celsius. The large syringes contain acyclic base, which dries clear. The starter pack also comes with a couple of plastic petrie dishes for mixing.
Well, how could I possibly resist? I took my hackerspaces name, and found some pretty letters, and using tracing paper and a fabric iron-on transfer pencil, transferred the main outlines to a plain grey tshirt.
I found the image didn't transfer cleanly, but persevered. I mixed up the paints with the base acyclic supplied and painted the squares with purple black light pigment and the outlines of the letters with glow-in-the-dark pigment. (The powders make for a fairly gritty concoction, but it's still usable.) This is when I discovered that the base acrylic paint dries clear, so I painted the letters with pink thermochromatic paint mixed with silver fabric paint. When it came to filling in the fine details I found that the fabric paint tubes nozzles were too wide, and my paint brushes too unwieldy. So, in a moment of innovation I covered the base of the nozzle with Blu-tack and pushed on a 5mm nozzle I'd previously purchased for henna. My hand is very shaky, it's been a while since I tired to copy a design free-hand, but for the purposes of this prototype tshirt it's all good.
The finished design:
Now, expose to UV light, then turn off the lights:
(Yes, that was a snap from earlier in the process, but I couldn't get a clearer picture.) I should have realised this earlier, but the purple blacklight pigments are not visible for me under UV light, because the grey tshirt glows itself anyway. I'll have to try them again on something darker.
Now, put the tshirt on top of the radiator and watch the pink drain away leaving only the silver fabric paint:
I reckon it's pretty snazzy, and at least now I have something to wear to the AGM. Oh, the possibilities for the future :)
Glitters
Date: 2010-01-29 11:48 pm (UTC)Re: Glitters
Date: 2010-01-30 09:07 am (UTC)Re: Glitters
Date: 2010-01-30 01:32 pm (UTC)Met someone who will bring his own XO to the space so we may take over the world via the mesh :D :D