Painting your case, any ideas...

[deltaf508]

I am wanting to paint my case to kinda match my stereo equipent (kinda matte black, or so). Has anyone attemted to paint your case and could you give me some pointers on doing a good job. Kind of paint, etc, etc. Maybe even some pictures.

Also is it possible to paint the CD-ROM and Floppy drive without making it look bad.

I'll post some pics when I get done.

Gary

[Cygnus-X1]

heh heh.. I've been thinking about doing that to my case as well! There should be a site on some "Custom Paint" computer cases.
That would be cool.

[bighogjeep]

here look at this www.virtualhideout.net/cool_case/index.shtm (http://www.virtualhideout.net/cool_case/index.shtm)

[bighogjeep]

First click on link may not work but if u get the white screen link should work there.

[arn]

I painted mine. Looks good now, after I had to remove the mess I first created.

Sand it with 220 or finer, remove dust with laquer thinner, Mineral spirits or regular paint thinner will leave a film.

When you start to paint, just fog it first. I used a spray can. This is the first mistake I made, trying to get too much on the first coat. Fog it some more so its covered fair, so you can still kinda see through it. Let it set until its tacky to the touch. This helps to hold the second coat.

This is kinda hard to explain but, I'll try: for the 2nd coat and 3rd you need to apply just enough so the paint flows together without leaving an overspray or a rough look but not so much that it runs.

It helps to have a nice warm room 80 degrees and warm the can in hot water. If you boil the water on the stove remove the pan first before you put the can of paint in it. Don't want it to blow up. Hot water out of the tap would be sufficent.

Practice on something else first.

One other thing, the other thing that gave me the most trouble, apparently some cases are painted with some kind of paint that's incompatable with the paint your putting on. Try a small area and if it blisters or cracks then you'll have to remove all the original paint. The best for that is the orange paint remover.

Good luck,
arn

[alondra]

Be care full with lacquer thinner, it will bubble some paints,like enamel, and melt some plastics. lacquer in spray cans will do it to, will bubble enamel.

[This message has been edited by alondra (edited 03-27-2001).]

[OuTpaTienT]

Couple of my painting experiments:

- Neon camouflage (http://members.home.net/0utpatient/Paint/myk62a.html) (I kinda liked this one)

- Black w/dripping blood (http://members.home.net/0utpatient/MyK62.html) (eh, pretty crappy, but this was the first attempt at a paint job...and done mostly out of boredom and to no quality standards what-so-ever.)

It's a pain to paint the faces of things like CD-Roms and the like, but it certainly can be done if you want to take the time to do it right.

With the metal case, just rough it up a little with some fine grit (220 would work) sandpaper. Don't sand the plastic parts, and don't use any solvent on the plastic, just make sure they are as clean as can be.

Remove all parts you want painted and paint them in another room or garage or whatever. If you want to paint the faces of the drives then you must remove those too. All manufacturers will be different but they will all allow the face of devices to detatch one way or another.

Make sure you don't block or clog any ventilation holes with paint.

Make sure you're committed to doing this, because once you paint the plastic parts there's no going back. It's difficult to impossible to get most paints off plastic without ruining the the finish on the plastic. (For example, even though I have been through a couple upgrades since that neon camoflauge paint job, my keyboard is still orange/green/black!) http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[desmocat]

The last one that I built I painted with the granite two step paint made by Krylon.
Its grey stone and I did the case, mouse and the keyboard. It was kind of a pain to tape off all the keys, because they wouldn't come out and I had to go around all the groups as well as taping over the hot buttons and their labels. It turned out pretty good I think and led to the computers new name: Bedrock. Yeah, I name my boxes,I'm weird that way...BTW, his brothers are Darktower and Squirt....

[GroundZero3]

go to www.hardocp.com (http://www.hardocp.com) and go into there forums. click on cases. some of the people in there are pretty hardcore about there case mods. they have some creative ideas in there

Jason

[skywalker[TSG]]

does anybody here know the goldcolor that pioneer usues on their highend HiFi equipment is called ?

i want my case to look the same as my dvd+receiver

this is the color im after http://www.pioneer-eur.com/products/home/vsx16en.htm

[King_Kooba_Fantastique]

This might be a stupid question, but, what about fumes due to heat ?...any problems there ?.

KKF.

[deltaf508]

Skywalker,

that's going to look sweet http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Don't know what the color is though....

Gluck,

Gary

[OuTpaTienT]

After paint is dry there should be no problem with any fumes. Now if your case is getting so hot that it's burning the paint on the outside of the case then you have other issues, like fire hazard, to be concerned with.