Sunday 27 May 2007

A New Colour of Wiimote Strap - Now in Navy Blue!


I recently saw someone who had used Rit Dye on their Wiimote strap on Kotaku and thought it looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a whirl myself today. I have to say it looks frigging awesome and got me to thinking about doing it on the actual joypad, both a Wiimote, and a Xbox 360 controller!

As you can see from my pictures, the dyeing works really well, and gets into the plastic brilliantly leaving no streaking or banding. It really could be an official Nintendo Navy Strap... you wouldn't be able to notice.


I have been told explicitly from the eBayer we bought the Rit dye from that you are best using US branded Rit dye as it is much stronger than the European equivalent, especially when it comes to fixing. As its plastic too, I would definitely recommend a US Rit dye (thats what I used) as the results are superb!

As it worked so well, I was intrigued as to what else would dye perfectly. My first thoughts are Amys Xbox 360 joypad.. which is going to look amazing in Rose Pink. Unfortuately Microsoft were kind enough to use pinned Torx 8 screws in the pad, so I need to send off for the screwdriver head before I can start on that. Next is the Wiimote itself, but again custom tri-directional screws stop short term tampering, until I get that screwdriver in the post too.

Both the Wiimote and the wireless 360 pad are going to look awesome in pink when I can get them apart, and both should be relatively easy to do. The joypads both lend themselves to a pastel pink given the things I wont be dyeing (i.e. the bumpers and grey dpad/analogue sticks on the 360 and the buttons on the Wiimote).

What this example is one of the cover bays cut in half with a hacksaw. I dyed one half in my boil bath and used the other half to stir and flip it. The results are astounding.

The dyed side is superbly rich in colour and the finish is consistence and streak free. The dye doesnt come off the plastic when i rub it with my finger, so long term use in gaming should be fine. Dying a full joypad with Rit dye is going to be the dogs bollocks! Watch this space for my how to guide on how to change the colour of your Wiimote or your Xbox 360 joypad coming soon!

No comments: