Great idea. Thanks to thehumanhive for making it available,
and thanks for making the videos, etc. I dyed mine with RIT
scarlet powder and it came out great. See attached pictures
and detailed notes on dyeing.
I used RIT dye scarlet powder.
1/2 level teaspoon RIT powder in 1/2 gallon water (approx).
(RIT instructions say 1 Tablespoon for 3 gallons)
Heat plain tap water to boil on stove in small steel pot.
Take off heat.
Let pot cool a few minutes (might be ~160 degrees F).
Add 1/2 teaspoon RIT scarlet powder dye.
Stir.
(RIT instructions say to pre-disolve powder in small
amount of water, then dump dyed water into heated pan
of water. I didn't bother. It turned out just fine.)
Drop in clean dry parts.
(RIT instructions say to wet fabric before dyeing, but
it worked well for me to just drop in the WSF parts dry)
Stir occasionally.
Every couple minutes lift out of water to see what color it is.
(of course wet items appear darker than when they are dry)
After approximately 12 minutes of dyeing the color was nice.
Rinse in warm water.
Rinse in warm soapy water.
Rinse in cold water.
Set on rack or paper to dry.
Detailed notes:
I spread out some newspaper to avoid getting dye on the counter.
I used some nitrile gloves so my fingers wouldn't get dyed.
Parts with only one narrow opening (eg all external gear heart
pieces) didn't seem to get dye inside. This wasn't a problem.
The dye penetrated plenty by soaking through the WSF from the
outside. The resulting color looks pretty even and deep.
I had already assembled the new white heart, and thought
about disassembling it for the dyeing process, but
I intuited that the dye job would be fine leaving it
assembled. So that's what I did. Just dropped the
whole assembled dry white gear heart in the dye bath.
It floated (because the external gear heart parts
are hollow, and dye didn't find its way inside).
I used a slotted spoon to hold it under the surface,
and used the same spoon to occasionally lift it out
to see what color it was.
The end result looks great.
Thanks, thehumanhive, great idea, and thanks, Shapeways,
for providing a great service.