Dye a Lacrosse Head
This is a brief summary on how to dye a lacrosse head. Dyeing is quick, easy and lots of fun! Many players at every level play with dyed sticks. At the college level you will see a couple players on every team with dyed sticks. Not only can it bring new life to an old stick, it can draw lots of attention on the field and give your game a new attitude. This article will tell you everything you need to know about dyeing a lacrosse head.
Steps
- Plan out the stick design first. Before you buy the appropriate color dye, decide what the color scheme and the pattern is going to look like. Also figure out if your design is possible. This is important so you do not make a mistake and dye the stick the wrong color first. Draw a basic outline and picture first in order to be sure to remember each step and to get an idea of how the colors will look when finished.
- Prepare the stick for the first dye. At this point you want to use the tape and letters or numbers to cover the plastic. Remember that what you are about to tape is going to remain white when the stick is complete. Also, remember to heat up the tape a bit to make it adhere properly to the plastic. Unless you want to dye the pocket as well, I recommend removing the string first!
- Start mixing the dye. At this point you need to measure out how much water is required to completely submerge the stick. Then place the water in a container over the stove and bring it to a boil. When the water starts to boil, turn of the stove and let it cool a little bit. When it stops bubbling add the dye to the water, you may want to use an old kitchen tool to stir it a bit if it is in the powder form. While the dye is still very hot, place the stick in the dye. It should only be a matter of minutes until the stick has come to its full color, the hotter the dye, the faster it takes to the stick. Also keep in mind one of the rules of dying: If you are dying the stick more than one color, make sure that this is the lightest of the colors.
- Remove the stick when you are satisfied with the color and place it immediately under the tap of the sink under ice cold water. This will wash off all the remaining dye that could drip off the stick and potentially ruin the carpet in your house or your clothes! It also cures the stick, meaning that the dye will not bleed off of it and onto your hands. After rinsing the stick, place it back in the dye for another 5-10 minutes. This lets the color stay longer, insuring that the color won't fade. Rinse the head again in cold water, and once you dry it, put it in the freezer for about 25 minutes. This is so that if you chip your stick, it won't look like the original color, but instead the color of the dye. If you have taped the stick in order to create designs, by leaving the stick under the cold water it also makes it a lot easier to take off the tape!
- At this point, you can dry the cold water from the stick with an old dish rag of some sort. If you are only dying your stick one color than you are ready to remove the tape if you had used any to keep some of the stick white, or if you just dyed it one solid color, then you are ready to string it up and go play.
- If you are dying the stick another color, then you need to leave the tape on the stick that you placed on there before to keep the white parts of the stick. Now add more tape to keep parts of the stick the color that you just dyed. Then repeat steps 1-4 again only this time use a darker color dye. Feel free to get as crazy as you can imagine to create a crazy designed stick all your own.
Tips
- Below are some ideas for custom dye jobs and descriptions of how to do them.
- Confetti: This is a dye job that has become very popular in recent years because it is fairly simple to make and it looks fantastic when finished. Cut any variety of small shapes from the tape and place them on the stick (triangles, circles, squares, etc). Then dye the stick in a lighter color such as light blue, yellow, red, orange or even Neon green! Then after you have dyed it once, cover the stick with more shapes and dye it a darker color such as Royal Blue, Forest Green, Black. When you remove the shapes you will have a stick with white and whatever color you chose confetti. If you do not heat up the tape you can allow some color to seep into the white spots, this can sometimes turn out to look good in the end. You can also tear the tape instead of cutting it to get faded edges. If you use duct tape to do this it has a really cool effect. People have been known to make confetti using all types of shapes, this is a really easy dye job to get creative with!
- Team Dye Job: This is a classic design where you use letters to spell out your name, team, number, or whatever you desire on the stick and dye the scoop one color, leaving a white strip at the corners of the scoop. Then dye the rest of the stick another color. This is done by taping off the sides of the scoop and then only sticking the scoop of the stick into the dye. Then when you have dyed the top. Turn the stick right-side up and dye the bottom half a different color.
- Fades: In order to fade from one color to the next you can simply hold one part of the stick out of the dye as you dye the rest of it. That way, one part will remain its current color while the rest of it will be fade to another color.
Things You'll Need
- A white, plastic lacrosse head
- Dye (preferably RIT dye in powder or liquid form)
- A container in which to dye the head. Use a container that is large enough and durable enough to withstand the heat of boiling water. An old kitchen pot that the family is no longer using or silver paint containers that are deep enough to fit a stick into are good.
- If you are planning on creating some kind of design and are dyeing your head something other than one solid color you will need some of the following.
- duct tape or electrical tape
- razor blades or scissors to cut the tape
- waterproof letter and number stickers
- glue gun
- lighter
- PAM cooking spray
