Dying Rubber

I've been testing dyeing my yellow rubber sheeting today as the colour doesn't go with my project at all. I've been screen printing onto the surface before now to quite a nice effect but that has the possibility of rubbing off after a while if wet etc. When hot water dying some of my perspex pieces I just happened to add a piece of rubber to the pot and the dye took to it really well and wouldn't wash off. As I have a large roll that I want to be printing onto I'd like to see it I can dye the whole thing to begin with so need to do these tests to see if the right colour can be achieved.

I was aiming for a pale brown but actually got a darker shade in colour; this is due to the rubber being left in the dye longer. This was much better than the first attempt which went rather red, ending up a maroon shade. Taking this into account the red was lessened to get the result of the browner shade.

Working out the ratio of dye to be added

Measuring out the dye

Putting the rubber in large pot of water waiting till it was at boiling temperature

Stirring the mixture; making sure the rubber was submerged for dye to fix

Left: Maroon shade. Right: Brown shade. Centre: Original rubber