Patchyjoon takes a stab at creating toys!

[patchyjoon]

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the late post. I finally got around to dying my balsa wood... it didn't turn out great. But I thought it would be cool to start documenting my toy making journey to see my progress.

So, first update:

I tried dying my balsa wood cubes that I bought from a store on etsy... I heated up around a cup of water and dropped around 3 drops of green dye from Americolor...

Couple questions to my more experienced toy makers:

1. The balsa wood would not stay submerged, I ended up having to awkwardly hold it down with a cup of water... is this normal?
2. The dye didn't really stick, like at all, on the wood. It came out a very light shade of green.. even though I had it submerged for 30 mins? You could also still very clearly see the grain on the wood. It definetly didn't look anything like the toys I buy from toy makers, it feels like their dyes stick to the wood a lot better....

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[patchyjoon]

Here's how the first toy came out! It's half destroyed because no balsa lives longer then 1 hour at our house haha

 

[Parront]

I am horrible at making toys, but you did a good job!

 

[Mizzely]

Straight water is not the best medium for this. 70% isopropyl alcohol is what most of us use. It means it only takes a quick dunk to get good color, and then it dries quickly, which reduces chance of mold (for those of us who need balsa to last more than an hour ) The only time something is in my dye for more than a second or two is because it is evading me as I try to fish it out And yes, balsa doesn't sink!

Here's some great information from Ann Food Coloring Wilton's UPATED DIRECTIONS Obviously hers was for scale and if aren't wanting to store a bunch of dye on hand, then you will need to do math to reduce the quantity and/or do experiment with the amounts