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Coloring tungsten beads

3K views 28 replies 21 participants last post by  DenWor54 
#1 ·
Maybe I'm late to the party on this and it's well known about the use of alcohol ink to color beads...?

My wife was at a craft store (I was tagging along) and they were demonstrating the use of alcohol ink on metal trinkets. This got me wondering about coloring tungsten beads. There are a lot of different colors of alcohol ink and it's relatively cheap for a bottle ~$4.

Here's what I came up with.

The base tungsten bead was silver-
Water Twig Wood Liquid Moisture


I colored one bead with crimson alcohol ink-
Cigarette Wood Recreation Twig Macro photography


And one with green alcohol ink-
Musical instrument Wood Musical instrument accessory Twig Metal


The stuff is supposed to be waterproof. I put it under the sink and ran water over it and tried scrubbing if off. It appeared to not lose any of its color.

I'm looking forward to playing around with the stuff.

Arthropod Insect Pest Wing Close-up


Brown Liquid Bottle Plant Cosmetics
 
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#2 ·
Maybe I'm late to the party on this and it's well known about the use of alcohol ink to color beads...?

My wife was at a craft store (I was tagging along) and they were demonstrating the use of alcohol ink on metal trinkets. This got me wondering about coloring tungsten beads. There are a lot of different colors of alcohol ink and it's relatively cheap for a bottle ~$4.

Here's what I came up with.

The base tungsten bead was silver-
View attachment 183398

I colored one bead with crimson alcohol ink-
View attachment 183399

And one with green alcohol ink-
View attachment 183400

The stuff is supposed to be waterproof. I put it under the sink and ran water over it and tried scrubbing if off. It appeared to not lose any of its color.

I'm looking forward to playing around with the stuff.

View attachment 183402

View attachment 183401
I just tossed a fly that I'd knocked all the chartreuse paint off the bead by missing the water and hitting a rock or barnacle (more than once) - oh, and the fly did get torn up from some teeth and the hook was a bit rusty :rolleyes: I can see a use for this, thanks for sharing!
 
#11 ·
The one problem I see is when someone asks you what color the bead that you're using is and you have to tell them Meadow.:D
At the very least, you could keep those asking terribly bewildered . . . "They seem to be liking Latte, Honeycomb & Poppyfield" . . . :D. Looks like another trip to the craft store is in order, but I want to try it on bead-chain eyes.
 
#23 ·
For the betterment (or, I'm a klutz and spilled it on myself) of WFF I decided to use my thumb as a tester for the waterproof/durability of the ink.

This is after 5 minutes of vigorous scrubbing with soap and hot water-
Leg Plant Pink Terrestrial plant Petal


Disclaimer: Actual results may differ when compared to other materials that are not skin...:)
 
#24 ·
For the betterment (or, I'm a klutz and spilled it on myself) of WFF I decided to use my thumb as a tester for the waterproof/durability of the ink.

This is after 5 minutes of vigorous scrubbing with soap and hot water-
View attachment 183878

Disclaimer: Actual results may differ when compared to other materials that are not skin...:)
I'm calling bullshit, you got bit by a pike!?!
 
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