Can you dye bone nuts?

[stubhead]

I have been making my own nuts for many years, or at very least I always have to regrind factory nuts. I am really used to working with bone nuts. My upcoming 7-string is taking on a real cannibal-pirate-king, dried-blood kind of vibe as far as the color scheme goes and a plain creamy bone nut would be... garish, shall we say. Can I dye bone with regular old water-based aniline dye? I mean, get the nut slotted and shaped perfectly then dip it (soak it?) brush it? with a amber/brownish concentrate of aniline dye? I am concerned that wetting a bone nut already ground down all the way to finished sized might... weaken it or something. I could also paint it with like, brown automotive touch-up paint, or another alternative would be to buy a black plastic graphite blank.
:cool01:

 

[-CB-]

Dont think in terms of weakening, but in terms of changing its size.  But you can dye it with just about any type of dye.  You might want to leave the slots a bit "high" until you've dyed it and got it back in place.