Pigmenting silicone with food colouring?

[callmemilo]

Hi everybody... sorry if this is the wrong section of the forum to ask.

Has anyone here ever had any success using food colouring as a pigment in silicone? I've heard of using various types of paint, but thought this could possibly be an option too. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Chrisj]

Having never tried it myself I can't speak authoritatively but my thought it that it wouldn't work very well. What kind of silicone are you using? Smooth-on makes a sampler of silicone coloring for about $25 which is plenty of color for a lot of silicone. My thought is this, silicone is not cheap, so i wouldn't go cheap trying to color it and possibly inhibit or ruin the run. Especially if your using platinum silicone.

 

[blue2k]

Used icing pigment to colourise latex. Works very well, but colours are limited. It would be really cheap to test your theory with a little silicone.

 

[callmemilo]

Having never tried it myself I can't speak authoritatively but my thought it that it wouldn't work very well. What kind of silicone are you using? Smooth-on makes a sampler of silicone coloring for about $25 which is plenty of color for a lot of silicone. My thought is this, silicone is not cheap, so i wouldn't go cheap trying to color it and possibly inhibit or ruin the run. Especially if your using platinum silicone.

Actually I was eyeballing some metallic red food colouring, my thinking is it would be easier than trying to find metallic red powder. Expense isn't really the issue, the resulting colour is.

 

[woodman]

well the food coloring is going to be water soluble and silicone pigments and oil paints are not so I'm going to say no it probably wont disperse in the silicone.

 

[cavx]

Unless your "experimenting" with cheap caulking silicone, I'd be buying the proper stuff and getting the result you want.

 

[detenten]

I don't think it will work because of the water in the food coloring.

Smooth On has casting powders, and one is Red Devil. I haven't tried mixing casting powder into silicone yet, but that might work along with some red pigment (or whatever color it is you're trying to achieve).

http://www.reynoldsam.com/product/cast-magic-powder/