Braid lines with a custom colour twist

[URAGANGI]

I've been running another one of my garage experiments. This involes dying my new braid line too a custom colour, lets say colours like black grey and poo brown. Black works best at night while grey and poo brown work better during daylight.

All I've done is place my new spool of line directly from packet into the bucket with my solution of chosen dye , letting the line soak for a few days. The reason I let the line soak for this period is to let the dye take hold right through the spool.
After your content that the line has taken to the dye simpley rise off excess dye with fresh water and hang the spool up to dry. once again allow at least 2 to 3 days for drying this also allows the dye to take hold into the fibers of the braid.
Use permanent dye only as semi-permanent dye's tend to leach colour.

when the line is dry, simply spool up as per normal.

For a field test I had two rods rigged up identicaly the only differing variable being the line colour. The two colours were a bright factory green and the other was a grey home dyed line.

The results were More inquisitive bites and more fish landed on the grey line and lesser on the Factory bright green colour. The brown colour worked well when the river water was cloudy.

Has anyone else tried doing this? Or I'm over due for the PADDED CELL

[snodger 08]

ahhhhhh maybe you should pad the walls in your bedroom at least "L" Mate very interesting, and I could use the left over to cover the Mrs's greys

Have you tested to see if the strength in the braid is down after applying the dye as opposed to before the dye from the same roll? Would be interesting to see those results as well.

Wonder how the tuffline yellow would go in brown???

Are you talking clothes dye?

[NAGG]

Dying HMWPE fibres is a big ask - you are basically only staining the line using traditional dyes - it will never be permanent or light fast.
When spectra / dyneema is extruded - it is done so in a natural / semi opaque state ..... it is during the extrusion stage that you would ideally add colours - the trouble is soluable dyestuffs bleed out of polyolefins and pigment particles are usually too big for the ultrathin fibres
(causing weakness / breakages during orientation/ stretching) - In a nut shell its basically why braids fade /run ...... because they can only add colour in the coating stage (fused braids) - or some other post extrusion proces where it just sits on the surface and between the weave ...

So unless you can get the pigment / dye actually into the fibre ..... it is a loosing battle

[URAGANGI]

Snodger there's always a little port left in the bottle.

But yeah I have tested the breaking strain. As a controlled experiment I weighted the factory line at near failure point using powdered cement, Then I duplicated the dyed line with the exact weight as the factory. Then I pushed the factory line too breakage point, I took that weight and tested the dyed line. The result was the same, as I expected the line did fail. But the out come was good the dyed line didn't fail prematurely.

Therefore with tinkering around I didn't disturb the dyed line's tensile strenght.
Oh and yeah I was using fast set Textile dye.

Picture a fence rail with 2 bucket's suspended only with braid line. The buckets were then slowly filled with dry cement powder. That weight was then recorded and duplicated to the next subject. Intererestinly enough the line failed midway along the suspended line.

The other little factor came along as I was spooling up. The dyed line packed better than the factory line. even though that on both reels they were both top shod with the same line. This might have a little something to do with the salt content in the dye solution which helps stiffen the line. Just the same as salt water tuffens rope. Who knows I'm not an alchemist I'm just a backyard chemist I'm only guessing on this outcome.

[Si]

well thats interesting.

i know everyone has their preferences and in my opinion, generally, i think colour of braid makes negligable difference if you are using a long enough mono or flurocarbon leader. are you using the braid straight to the lure or something? sounds like you are using braid for bait fishing which i wouldnt do unless deepwater fishing but each to their own.

[the gecko]

You should do some research on what colors disappear at what depth..... it might show the whole exercise is pointless in depth beyond 10ft? It might also help to read up on which species see in color, as most animals see in black and white.

Nice idea for an experiment tho, and nice process on the breaking strains.

Theres been plenty of research done on braid colors by manufacturers. They do make grey braid for a reason, but Im not sure when its best used. Im assuming yellow hivis braid is popular cos we all like to see our line angle, and Im also guessing/hoping that it disappears in color once in the water at any deeper than about 10ft.

Line color may only matter in very clear water of shallow depth.

cheers
Andrew

[URAGANGI]

Well I guess this helped filling in spare time I suppose.

Off too the shed for my next adventure.... Zinc block to metal trailor's now that's a thought....HMMMM?