2010 E-Lacrosse StickTech: The Not a Sharpie Dye - The Tutorial

By Ian Klima

Ian won first place in our 2009 Dye Contest and many doubted his skills, thinking he used a sharpie. Well now Ian proves what we knew all along, that he's a major talent and that intricate dyes can be done with many hours of hard work. Enjoy.

WHAT YOU NEED: professional grade electrical tape, an exacto knife, fine point sharpie, lighter, and a piece of glass. I used the lighter to heat up the tape on the head, which makes the tape have a stronger bond to the head. I used the piece of glass to cut some of the harder designs out of the tape, by placing the tape on the glass and using the exacto knife to cut it out.

I started out by cleaning the head with a sponge with soap and hot water, and just scrubbed the head. Then I dried off the head completely. At first I cut the designs out of the tape and then placed the tape on the head, but that didn't work to well because sometimes the designs would be to big. So I ended up putting the tape on the head and cut the tape so that it fit the head right. It does leave little scratches on the head but they aren't notable except up close. Then I used the lighter to heat up the tape. And then I drew the designs onto the tape with the fine point sharpie and cut out the designs with the exacto knife.

I did little sections at a time and used the lighter to heat up the tape and press the tape onto the head hard to make sure the tape was strongly bonded to the head. I based this head off of the sharpie lamborghini car, and used similar designs off of it and came up with my own designs.

When taping the head you don't want to overlap the tape because the dye will usually bleed there. After I finished taping the whole head, I used a lighter to heat up all of the tape on the head and make sure is was strongly bonded. Then I heated up some black dye and put the head in it for about 10 minutes, so that it was really black. Then I put the head under the sink faucet and started to take the tape off. By putting it under the water it washes the dye off of the areas you don't want it. Then after all of the tape was off I put the head in the freezer to make cool the head down.

Overall this dye job is very time consuming and hard to do. It took me at least 30 hours to do. But in the end the head came out really really cool. I think i'm going to do another head like this one but instead of just doing it white and black i'm going to use a few colors.

April 16, 2010