Make: Projects – Cable Dyeing

Furniture & Lighting Science Technology
Make: Projects – Cable Dyeing

If you want an extension cord, power cord, or other plastic-insulated cable in an unusual color, and you can find one in white, there’s a good chance you can dye it to suit your preference using this technique.

Turns out many cables are sheathed with PVC, and will take the same oil-based stains as PVC pipe. If you want a purple cord, for instance, you can treat a white PVC cord with purple primer. If you want some other color, it is easy to prepare your own custom stains from clear PVC cleaner and concentrated solvent dyes.

12 thoughts on “Make: Projects – Cable Dyeing

  1. Matthew Miller says:

    I never before considered the prospect of tie-dye cables but now I’m tempted to give it a try.

  2. William Parrott says:

    Both links in the article are broken for me. They still working?

    1. Sean Michael Ragan says:

       I just now clicked through to make sure, and they work fine for me.  Are you still having problems?  Thanks for taking the time to let us know.

      1. William Parrott says:

         They work for me now. Don’t know what it was before. I tried in two browsers on different computers.

        Weird.

        Thanks.

      2. William Parrott says:

         They work for me now. Don’t know what it was before. I tried in two browsers on different computers.

        Weird.

        Thanks.

  3. Elizabeth Marzili says:

    I love my new Tie Dye Cable! Thank you for posting this! 

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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