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Hoping to give my Necrons a color other than neon green. Looked around a bit for extruded acrylic rods in other colors, hoping for purple, but haven't found any place that does them at the 3/32" diameter or so.
Anyone know where I can find something like this?

I don't specifically but you would be surprised how many varieties of acrylic parts you can get online if you keep Googling.

The place I buy mine has red, yellow, orange and green, but I'm sure there are others.

My Necrons (still unfinished) have yellow rods that are dipped in red ink to give a graduated colour.

Sounds cool; from where do you buy them? I'd be interested in seeing if I can get purple, or maybe even blue and dip it in red ink.
Or maybe even clear ones if I can get them at the right diameter and if you think purple ink would take well enough to make them look purple.


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Tried Tap Plastics. They'd only do it if I wanted to order tens of thousands of feet. Sadly, I don't have quite that many Necrons.

Just a local model shop. I'll check again this week and see if they maybe have blue as well...

Appreciate the help!

You can get clear rod
I have tinted clear sprue to make navigation lights for scale models.

Have seen canopies tinted so it is possible I guess.
Not sure how well the ink will work
Sadly I don't have any to do a test on clear sprue.
Could try GW wash if it would help

Also acrylic paint thinned with acrylic floor polish should work well. I use Johnson's Klear (Futur in the States)

My friend was working on a Necron army with red-orange rods:


The rods he used were ones which I found for him at the local Kmart in this form (except red):


They were available (at the time) in red, yellow, blue, purple, and green, maybe a couple of other colours as well, I don't remember. One toy cost less than $20 (in New Zealand money - maybe $10 US), and had enough rods for a fairly large Necron force. He just had to cut the "head" off each plastic pin at the right length to slot them into the gun.

So I'd recommend checking out your local toy and/or department stores for one of these, I don't think you'll find a better deal in terms of number of rods per dollar, and I can confirm that they come in a nice deep purple colour (or at least they did - they didn't get any more in stock after selling out, so they don't have them anymore).

Great army (give your friend props on that for me!), and fantastic idea! Thanks!

Hate to say it, but I've never seen purple plastruct rod in any diameter.

Here's your options as I see them:

1.) Get white tubing and paint it purple. Easy, but not opaque.

2.) Get clear rod and try washing it with GWS leviathan purple or whatever it's called. Easy, but might not work, not sure if the wash will adhere to raw styrene. Maybe someone that already has clear rod can try this and see? I myself only have pre-tinted.

3.) Get clear rod and try soaking it in RIT purple clothing dye. Easy, but might not work. On the plus side you can almost certainly get this at your supermarket for $2 or so. Again, I don't have any clear rod but perhaps someone can test this for you. If this works would be dead simple and you should post a tutorial. Grape Kool-aid (without sugar) might also be worth a try.

4.) Get clear rod and try soaking it in plastic dye meant for plastic lures. They have purple! Will almost certainly work, but will take some time due to shipping delays.

5.) Recasting plastic rod, with tint added to it: this is easy for someone already set up to cast. All you need is clear resin and a purple tint. Far less easy, with expensive startup costs: best to hire out someone to try doing this for you on the swap shop. Would definitely work but probably the last resort due to hassle and expense. If you try the other options, and fail, I can try doing this for you - but I think steps 3 & 4 will probably be the easiest and produce the most easily repeatable results.



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**Important note: If you decide to try out the fishing lure dyes, you uh, might want to avoid the scented ones. Athough "garlic" flavored Pariahs would make a hell of a themed army.

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:Great army (give your friend props on that for me!), and fantastic idea! Thanks!

Unfortunately my friend has left the hobby now, I believe the necrons are with anther friend - they may or may not be finished at some point.
Good luck with your purple necrons, however you end up making them.

These guys do four colours of acrylic rod and clear.

http://www.ema-models.co.uk/index.php/acrylic-plastic-shapes/round-rods-fluorescent.html?p=3

No purple. You'll have to look at tinting the blue with red ink maybe.

Very helpful, Ouze. Currently exploring the dying options, and still hoping to hear from anyone who happens to find one of those pin toy things in translucent purple.
If I need your services in casting, I'll be sure to ask once I've figured out if these options work or not.
Thanks!

Ouze wrote:2.) Get clear rod and try washing it with GWS leviathan purple or whatever it's called. Easy, but might not work, not sure if the wash will adhere to raw styrene. Maybe someone that already has clear rod can try this and see? I myself only have pre-tinted.

GW seems to have discontinued Leviathan Purple.
However, I had some old Purple Ink still. Tried it. It came out okay. At first. The ink/paint, once dry, scratches off -very- easily. I might be able to get it to work with some sealant spray or something, but I'm going to explore other options first.

Going to try purple permanent marker on clear rod next.

This is an intriguing thread.

You could try mixing a few drops of purple ink with some Future Floor Acrylic. I have used Future tinted with food coloring and various inks with for tinting canopies. The Future coat should be much more scratch resistant. http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html is a handy guide with various Future techniques. Tamiya also makes some awesome clear colors but they can be hard to get a hold of.

Ouze wrote:This is an intriguing thread.

Good to hear. I'm finding it much the same myself. This thread has actually gotten me really excited about 'alternate'-color Necrons. Makes me glad I hadn't gotten off my ass and actually painted them at any point in the last ten years.

totallyrobot wrote:You could try mixing a few drops of purple ink with some Future Floor Acrylic. I have used Future tinted with food coloring and various inks with for tinting canopies. The Future coat should be much more scratch resistant. http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html is a handy guide with various Future techniques. Tamiya also makes some awesome clear colors but they can be hard to get a hold of.

Ooh, interesting idea. I'll have to try that out.

I've ordered some of that instant mold stuff that all the cool kids are using now, and when it comes, will try my hand at casting some rods with molds from that - would prefer not to blow my high end, low viscoscity platinum cure silicone on tubes. At that point will experiment with tinting clear resin with washes and stuff. They make proper polyester resin tint, but it's $8 a jar and I don't think I'd get enough use out of it to justify the layout.

I've cast my own necron crystals with clear resin tinted with thraka green, but was not super pleased with the results. They were translucent, but much darker then I had wanted. They looked almost like jade, rather then that flourescent otherworldly green I prefer.

http://www.sdplastics.com/castacryliccoloredrod.html

Whoops.

$100 minimum order.

Got a lot to do? ^_^

Phayse wrote:http://www.sdplastics.com/castacryliccoloredrod.html

Whoops.

$100 minimum order.

Got a lot to do? ^_^

While I figured out today that I need like 200 of the damned things, this site seems to have a minimum diameter of half an inch, much thicker than I need.
But I appreciate you looking!

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:

Phayse wrote:http://www.sdplastics.com/castacryliccoloredrod.html

Whoops.

$100 minimum order.

Got a lot to do? ^_^

While I figured out today that I need like 200 of the damned things, this site seems to have a minimum diameter of half an inch, much thicker than I need.
But I appreciate you looking!

This is why everyone should use metric!

Phayse wrote:This is why everyone should use metric!

No, -this- is why everyone should use metric.

I've actually come up with a little gizmo to cut Necron Warrior rods to just the right size - just a piece of aluminium tubing that's blocked at one end - will see what my local model store has in the way of colours today.

BTW, 3/32" is the size needed for anyone else who's looking...

BloodQuest wrote:I've actually come up with a little gizmo to cut Necron Warrior rods to just the right size - just a piece of aluminium tubing that's blocked at one end - will see what my local model store has in the way of colours today.

BTW, 3/32" is the size needed for anyone else who's looking...

Amazingly helpful of you. Thanks so much.


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totallyrobot wrote:You could try mixing a few drops of purple ink with some Future Floor Acrylic. I have used Future tinted with food coloring and various inks with for tinting canopies. The Future coat should be much more scratch resistant. http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html is a handy guide with various Future techniques. Tamiya also makes some awesome clear colors but they can be hard to get a hold of.

Got some of this today, going to try it in a little bit.

Theres also a suggestion or 2 in this thread
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/327884.page

Trying the Future Floor Acrylic + Purple Ink thing right now...though it doesn't seem to be tinting the acrylic rod at all. Going to let it soak for a bit longer.

Maybe I didn't use enough ink. It's difficult to tell.

Are these rods not a good size for what you need them?
http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=148

On the casting front, I dug around in my resin box and was surprised to discover I already own red and blue tint. So, here's what I got now.

6 cc's of clear resin

first recast of my homemade storm shields: 1 drop red, 1 drop blue
second, 2 drops red, one drop blue (the red is already pretty purplish, imo)
third, 2 drops red 2 drops blue

the block is a bunch of crystals I molded, when I had dreams of casting multicolored necron crystals. They're in recipe 3 (grape).

That link Bioterror posted in the other thread looks most promising, as well.


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insidejoke wrote:Are these rods not a good size for what you need them?
http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=148

Way too thick, unfortunately.

Ouze wrote:
Way too thick, unfortunately.

Skimmed through the thread and missed the size needed. Sorry

insidejoke wrote:Skimmed through the thread and missed the size needed. Sorry

Still an awesome source for 1/4 inch rods for homebrew monoliths, converted heavy destroyer cannons, homebrew necron superheavies, etc.