Hi guys,

I know that topic for Antron was here, but I would like to describe my specific problem and would love to hear any advices from you guys.
Today was the first time I ever dyed Antron fleece. At the beginning I was thinking of putting piece of Antron into a big pot (I haven't anything else) - everything was prepared: water was boiling on a low heat, then I added RIT dye (liquid), stirred it and left for couple of minutes for further boiling. I put some scrap of cotton fabric (soaked and wrung out before I put it in) into a pot and everything seemed to be OK with that one. But then I started to think that I'm too much afraid of sinking Antron into this pot due to it was too small to lower in Antron straight without folding it on the sides... so I prepared a dyebath in my bathtube. And there my problem occured: I sank Antron into without any folding or crumpling and thought everything will be fine but it WAS NOT After couple of seconds I realized my Antron looked like a cheetah with hundreds of white (original Antron color) spots. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I cannot waste this piece of fabric so I dove my hands into a dyebath (was hot, yeah, but I survived, although with blue, deathly pale palms, hehe) and started to rub water with dye into my Antron in the places with spots (oh well, so almost everywhere).
I SAVED my Antron that way, haha... looks nice now with no spots at all but I spent around 20 minutes on my knees praying over bathtube with /I can say then: holy / Antron fleece floating in it.

Could you please tell me what might cause that problem? I used a liquid version of RIT dye so there were no undissolved granules at all (and more: I was stirring that liquid anyway). I put my fleece horizontally into bath dye and then it was sunk into. What did I wrong?
And one more thing ---- could I put my Antron into that pot? Antron MUST be put flat or it can be folded and crumpled too?

(I'm writing too much -- always -- oh well, I'm improving my English that way )

Thank you in advance, guys!

First.................. If not using the liquid rit dye..........disolve the powder in one quart of hot boiling water and then I strain it thru a piece of scrap cloth to catch any undesolved dye crystals. Then you have a pur liquid dye.
Second................ You have to wet your piece of antron with plain water first before dyeing, this will make the dye absorb evenly.
Third......... Submerge your wet piece of antron in to your dyebath..................... Make sure you right down how much dye you used, time left in dye bath, and a small sample of the cloth to keep as swatch for future dyes.

Billy D.

My guess is your fabric was dry when you put it in the dye bath............. so it took it longer to absorb the dye evenly.

Billy, my Antron was not dry. I soaked it and wrung out before I put it into the dyebath.
And I was using a liquid dye as well, I wrote it in my post.

I have seen this before but the last time it happened that I saw the antron was wet but not rung out all the way. The extra wayet stopped the die from soaking into those areas as quickly. Now admitedly I have never seen bright white spots. I wonder if something might have been on the antron or it was a defective peice. I have seen uneven dies before on bad fleece.

Billy, my Antron was not dry. I soaked it and wrung out before I put it into the dyebath.
And I was using a liquid dye as well, I wrote it in my post.

Sorry......... overlooked that it is early here and only one cup of coffee. Perhaps Doc is right.

Billy D.

Jay, do not even try to get me scared, please.... I've got 7 yards of this Antron and if the problem lies where you suppose it does, I do not even want to think about it...
...but, oh well! I can dive my hands in a hot water again and rub dye into fleece, there is no problem all in all - I did it before so I'm able to do it again and again ...

Good morning guys (In North America).
Something happened to me like that, but in my case, I put the antron fleece in a pot with water and the add the dye rit solution (It was a mess). I had to tried like three more time to get the color (I couldn't saved it as I want "better than in the beginning", but I have to use it like this).
And then, tried different way. I add the dye solution in the pot with hot water and the put inside the fleece (Wet) and with a wood stick I submerged, and moved (The finish, great!).
I just Have Used dye rit solution like five time (Counting the times that I tried to fix the one with the spots).

Hoping this info helps!

Miguel!

Tsu buy yourself some of those long rubber yellow dish gloves incase it happens again. Look on the back of the fleece are there any areas where it looks like the feece came unravelled

Tsu:

Those are good questions.  I have had a similar experience.  I'm wondering if this is the nature of the newer Antron.  It is a little harder to dye well.  I had to do a lot of rubbing to get mine to dye well.  Have you veteran builder's tried the newest Antron by chance?

Pam

yes sadly I have no choice now because I ran out of the original.