paint job: Hazard

[silverdemon]

Hi all,

some of you might have noticed me asking for some ideas on painting my case. Now I made up my mind and my new 'project' is named:

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/Logo-1.jpg

That's right, Hazard. One thing I want to make clear before you read on: this is actually not a real mod, since I will only be painting the case...
Anyways, on to the pictures:

The HP Vectra (server) case in it's natural habitat
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0376.jpg

Some other pictures to show what a nice case this actually is (even though it is old and beige)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0377.jpg

other side
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0378.jpg

The behind (:P) of the case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0379.jpg

A view of the guts of the beast, the system is in 'my system' but basically it is a E8400 proc, n650 chipset, 4GB of GEIL memory and an nVidia 9600GT
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0381.jpg

The side panel can be removed very easilly by the way, just pull the handle and it 'folds open'
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0382.jpg

Continue undressing; you can see the nice drive-bay-sleds, 1x 3,5" and 3x 5 1/4"
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0383.jpg

And finally the bottom of the front panel is off. All this can be done with no tools whatsoever, just click-thingies and stuff like that
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0384.jpg

And here is some of the skin I'm going to paint. Obviously the right panel and the top panel will also be painted...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0386.jpg

And finally: This is how I plan to paint it
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/CopyofIMGP0386.jpg

So, that's all I have for now. I haven't started paint just yet, but I might be able to begin next week.


Keep safe - silverdemon

[Trace]

Glad you took my idea!

"If it's not stock, it's modded." So this does constitute a mod, even if you don't feel a paint job does.

[Drum Thumper]

This'll look like a million bucks after you're done. You're inspiring me to tear apart one of my servers and get rid of the beigeness of it.

[slaveofconvention]

This'll look like a million bucks after you're done. You're inspiring me to tear apart one of my servers and get rid of the beigeness of it.

Beige is baaaaad - do it do it do it lol

I'm about to start painting a couple of "spare" computers just to get some practice in before I start painting Lobo....

[silverdemon]

Thanks for the kind words!

I really hope it'll look like a million bucks when done, however I had a minor set-back last week. I tried to spray the first layer of paint of the inside of the top-front part, but the paint is a bit different than I'm used to so I messed up a bit...
No worries though, I can fix it again, but I'll have to be more patient and this project will take a bit longer than I expected at first.

Anyways, I'll be painting the next coat tomorrow, and the last coat for this part the after that, so by the end of this week I'll be done with my first part (fingers crossed) and some more pictures should be on their way...

keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

All right!

Here are the pictures of the first painted parted. I'm not really happy with how they turned out, because there is a lot of dust at the place I paint the parts, but it'll have to do.

On to the pictures!

These are the parts I painted in the first batch; the top front panel along with the drivebay-covers and the floppy-drive cover.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0389.jpg

Here you can see the nice shiny finish of the paint. Unfortunately you can also see that there are quite a lot of dust-particles IN the paint :s
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0391.jpg

On to the assembly; the front cover.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0392.jpg

With the floppy-drive cover in place
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0393.jpg

With one drivebay-cover in place
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0395.jpg

Final drivebay cover in place
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0396.jpg

And this is how it looks on the case! I think the color came out pretty nice.
Oh yeah, The drive-front will also be painted, so that'll blend in too in the end...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0397.jpg

Let's see a close-up. You can see that I don't use the floppy-drive... The space behind this cover is used for some wire-management. The flash of my camera shows it very well, but in real life you can't see that far into the slot.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0399.jpg

and finally an even closer-up
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0400.jpg

So, that's all I have for now, tell me what you think so far.
Today I will start with the bottom-front cover, 2 or three layers of yellow and then the black-design... Probably will finish that somewhere next week.

I'm sorry that the pictures are not top notch, I just don't have enough light to make real nice pictures...
Hope you like it

keep safe - silverdemon

[Couch3ater]

Give it a nice wet sand and some rubbing compound / polish. That'll help smooth out any imperfections. On another note, did you clear coat it? If not, I'd recommend doing that before you do anything else. =D

Looks great though. Really good mirror finish on it. ^_^

[silverdemon]

I never did polishing (nor wet-sanding) before, so I'll have to try that on a test piece first.

I did not use clear coat. I just sanded the parts with some nice old cleaning-sponge:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0403.jpg

Don't know how you call them where you are, but it's a sponge with a rough surface on one side to scrub off the really terrible stains and stuff.. It does great as fine sandpaper, I think it's about as rough as scotch brite (I actually looked it up and it turns out 'scotch brite' also makes these things)

Anyways, sanded, painted, sanded some more and painted again, that's all I did...

You say clear coat it before you do anything, but does the clear-coat cloak the dust particles? or does it just make it easier to wet-sand/polish it?

For now I'll leave this part of the case alone, I'll paint all the other parts first and then decide if I want to clear-coat and polish/wet-sand it

thanks for the advise though!

[jiggiwiddit]

Looking good so far... :up: If you can, close the painting area and boil some water for 10-15 minutes. The steam helps to take the dust particles out of the air (unless it's a very large area).

[silverdemon]

Hey guys,

thnx for the tip jiggiwiddit, but unfortunately the room I'm painting is is a bit too large so I'll have to do with the dust... Last week I tried to paint outside because the sun was shining. But that didn't go that well either, the painted cover looked like a magnet to dust, sand and other things you get outside :S

So after some sanding and another layer of paint the bottom-front cover is now yellow:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0404.jpg

This morning I masked the area that needs to stay yellow and sprayed the first layer of black on it. I'm hoping it turns out well, but I'll see that later today. I think I will then spray another layer of black tomorrow and that should do it for the front of the case...

keep safe - silverdemon

[Couch3ater]

Very nice with the yellow. But yea, once you lay down your color layers, you shoot a layer or two of clear coat over it. It's really just a protective layer; like the plastic wrap that comes over vinyl. It not only helps protect the paint job but gives it a REALLY nice sheen.

Wet sanding isn't too difficult, it's just making sure you don't cut through your layers of paint / primer / clear coat that gets tricky. If you're interested, get yourself some 1000 / 1500 / 2000 grit wetsand paper. Fill a small container with warm water and maybe a little bit of dish detergent. Get yourself a sanding block for a flat surfaces and a sponge for the not so straight surfaces. Wet the paper and sand. When you sand, you're just sanding lightly, no intense pressure's needed. Make sure you keep your strokes going in the same direction. I.E., you were sanding in a downward stroke, sand in a downward stroke.

There's more detailed (and probably way more accurate) descriptions on how to wetsand in the How To section.

Keep up the good work! I can't wait to see how it comes out! =D

[silverdemon]

Thnx for the tips Couch3ater! I'll see how the parts come out when they are clear-coated and might give it a go then.

OK, small text-only update:

Today I took off the masking tape after the third layer of black (on the bottom-front panel) and I must say: it looks kinda cool. However there are some spots where the paint bled through the edges of the masking tape... :(

So I guess I'll have to touch those spots up and go for a clear-coat... But that's for next week, I'll post pictures too next week...

keep safe - silverdemon

[edit]
OK, I couldn't resist posting a sneak preview here :P. The blur is photoshop, and the part around the button and leds (supposed to be black) is not on yet...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0409.jpg

[burntheland]

Today I took off the masking tape after the third layer of black (on the bottom-front panel) and I must say: it looks kinda cool. However there are some spots where the paint bled through the edges of the masking tape... :(


Frog tape. Available at wally world! I hate to plug walmart, but that sh*t is the bomb.

[Couch3ater]

Hahaha, looks sweet. =D

[jiggiwiddit]

Looking good :up:. And if I screw my eyes up I can see it fine :lick:

[silverdemon]

Frog tape. Available at wally world! I hate to plug walmart, but that sh*t is the bomb.

Too bad, the nearest wallmart is probably more than 3000 miles away... I'll stick to my paper-like masking tape:D


Hahaha, looks sweet. =D

Thnx, wait till you see the whole thing. when I get to fix the minor faults and spray the clear on it it'll look a whole lot better:rolleyes:


Looking good :up:. And if I screw my eyes up I can see it fine :lick:

You got great eyes then :alien: a friend of mine almost got sick staring at this picture:)

[silverdemon]

Right! Update time!

I finally finished the painting of the bottom-front panel. Today I put on two layers of clear. It is not entirely how I want to have it (there are still some imperfections..) but it'll have to do.

On to the pictures:
The part on it's own
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0413.jpg

A close-up (if you look really hard you may spot some of the imperfections)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0415.jpg

This is how it looks on the case. The white fan will be painted yellow when I get to it...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0417.jpg

The front
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0419.jpg

Don't know why I uploaded this picture, but it is once again the whole case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0421.jpg

And finally a close-up on the case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0427.jpg

Tomorrow I'll start on the side panel


BTW, maybe you think: "why does this all take so long?", well it's simple, I bought the wrong paint... The paint I use has a dry-time of 16 hours! which means I get to spray only one layer per day... fortunately the clear-coat is of a different brand which needs only 2 hours to set.
This also means it'll take at least 6 days to paint the side panel when I spray one layer every day...

I'll keep you posted!

keep safe - silverdemon

[edit]: found out I added the wrong picture (last one) so changed it to the real close-up...

[diluzio91]

16 hours... whaaaaa?? lol... looking nice! ps, y not paint / clear coat the DVD drive :D

[Couch3ater]

Looks really nice! =D

[jiggiwiddit]

Thats looking really good :up:

I'm thinking the a colored car polish (black) might get rid of some of the imperfections.

Love the color scheme, reminds me of a yamaha motorbike that I had in the 80s :)

[silverdemon]

16 hours... whaaaaa?? lol... looking nice! ps, y not paint / clear coat the DVD drive :D

yeah, kinda sucks with the paint... I will paint the dvd drive later, so it'll blend in nicely
(in fact... me thinks maybe I'll start with it later this week, since the side panel also has some black in it...)


Looks really nice! =D

thanks:)


Thats looking really good :up:

I'm thinking the a colored car polish (black) might get rid of some of the imperfections.

Love the color scheme, reminds me of a yamaha motorbike that I had in the 80s :)

Now that you mention it, it kinda does! however, I think there was some white in that color scheme too, wasn't there?

[jiggiwiddit]

Now that you mention it, it kinda does! however, I think there was some white in that color scheme too, wasn't there?

Yep, I had one of these. And it was a hazard (scary fast)
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj67/jiggiwiddit/rd400_02.jpg

I'm and old timer :glasses: ha

keep up the good work :)

[artoodeeto]

Isn't it amazing what a difference just a cool paint job can make? Looks great so far! I know you said that the camera flash reveals a lot more inside the old floppy drive opening than what you can normally see, but personally I think it might be good to get a piece of sheet styrene or something, paint it black (heck, even black Bristol paper would work) and cover up that opening from the inside. Also, are you leaving that front fan white? Might look kinda cool to paint it black with a yellow stripe around the middle of the blades so when it spins there's a yellow circle inside the opening...or leave it white and do a black stripe... :)

[silverdemon]

Yep, I had one of these. And it was a hazard (scary fast)

I'm and old timer :glasses: ha

keep up the good work :)

Nice Bike! some family of mine used to race with classic motorbikes. My brother-in-law built a couple of Benelli (250cc and 350cc) and his father had a bunch of Yamahas (blue and black and a white one I think). I'll see if I can upload some pictures and post a link for you...
Here (http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/CRT/) is a (very) small collection of photo's of the classic bikes.



Isn't it amazing what a difference just a cool paint job can make? Looks great so far! I know you said that the camera flash reveals a lot more inside the old floppy drive opening than what you can normally see, but personally I think it might be good to get a piece of sheet styrene or something, paint it black (heck, even black Bristol paper would work) and cover up that opening from the inside.

Thanks! It looks tons different indeed. about the floppy thing: My case is on the ground under my desk, so you can't really look into the floppy-bay unless you're on the ground yourself... Maybe I can add a black-thingie behind it for my photos though.



Also, are you leaving that front fan white? Might look kinda cool to paint it black with a yellow stripe around the middle of the blades so when it spins there's a yellow circle inside the opening...or leave it white and do a black stripe... :)

I said it earlier, but the fan will be yellow. That's actually how this whole paint-scheme started:

I'm thinking black and yellow, nuclear theme. (the front blowhole looks kinda like an atomic symbol)
(this quote is from another thread (http://thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22468).)

Thanks for the reactions, keep safe - silverdemon

[artoodeeto]

I said it earlier, but the fan will be yellow.

:facepalm: whoops, I totally missed that :) Yellow will look great too.

[silverdemon]

Small update, well actually not a real update...

Some of you may have noticed that I painted over the LEDs on the front panel. At first I didn't care, because I never look at those LEDs, but I found out that they shine through the 3 or 4 layers of paint, which is pretty cool :D

So during the day, when the room is lit brightly by the big old sun (or when the computer is turned off) you can't see the light from the LEDs and the case looks like this:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0430.jpg

But when it's a bit darker, even in the evening with the lights on you can see the light through the paint:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0439.jpg

I know this last picture is rubbish, but it gives you an idea of how it looks. For the picture I made sure my hard drive was doing stuff, so that that LED was also turned on, when idle only the amber LED is on.

Small update on the side-panel: I'm going to spray an extra layer of yellow because I think I can still see through some bits of the paint, so expect this to take a bit longer (maybe end of next week finished)...

keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

Small sneak preview:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0441.jpg

I'm going to spray one more layer of black, then one more layer of yellow and after that some clearcoats, so expect more pictures at the beginning of next week...

keep safe - silverdemon

[chaksq]

Wow, this paint job is coming out GREAT. Glad to see your concept come into reality. Not to mention your paint skills are quite good. Looking forward to seeing the final results.

[silverdemon]

Wow, this paint job is coming out GREAT. Glad to see your concept come into reality. Not to mention your paint skills are quite good. Looking forward to seeing the final results.

It's funny you should say that... I messed up a bit on the side panel. Somehow there was a drop of clear-coat on my panel and it just ate through the three (or four) layers of black paint and left a nasty spot on the panel. I had to touch it up again...
It seems I'm just not patient enough to paint with this paint, I want to finish this panel, but rushing actually makes it look worse... Anyways, I think I'll finish it this week.

thanks for your support!

[Couch3ater]

Hahaha, the same can be said for any kind of paint. Rushing is a bad thing. Modding is just like life; patience is a virtue. That being said, when things like orders from online show up on my door step, I'm less than patient to tear everything apart. =D

[BS Mods]

Wow this is really cool. The old beige box can be cool after all!

I love the paint color scheme.

Paint can be a real pain. I have a real paint booth but even I get specs of dirt once in a while so don't feel bad. It happens. That's why you always wet sand then buff. These guys were right about clear coating it too. It helps hide dirt and once wet sanded will look amazing.

Keep up the good work.

[silverdemon]

Hahaha, the same can be said for any kind of paint. Rushing is a bad thing. Modding is just like life; patience is a virtue. That being said, when things like orders from online show up on my door step, I'm less than patient to tear everything apart. =D

Yeah, I'm getting a hard drive today, can't wait to tear the box apart :D
The main reason I'm so impatient (or why I tend to rush things with this paint) is because the drying time is soooo long (16 hours) Once you spray you can pretty much see your mess-ups right away, but you'll have to wait until the paint is dry to fix it. In my case I can't fix it until the next day, which is a real pain...


Wow this is really cool. The old beige box can be cool after all!

I love the paint color scheme.

Paint can be a real pain. I have a real paint booth but even I get specs of dirt once in a while so don't feel bad. It happens. That's why you always wet sand then buff. These guys were right about clear coating it too. It helps hide dirt and once wet sanded will look amazing.

Keep up the good work.

Thnx for the kind words! I'll have to look up some buffing-tutorial somewhere around here, but I'll do that (maybe) after I've finished all the panels.

Now on to an UPDATE

I have finally managed to (kind of) finish this panel properly. I'm sorry it took about two or three weeks longer than promised/expected, but that's because this panel just didn't want to be painted... or maybe it is haunted, I don't know.

The story
Anyway, I started of with the yellow (3 layers), then sprayed the top black (3 layers) then the stripy-things (2 or 3 layers, can't remember exactly) but then the problems started...

In my haste I had not masked the striped correctly and I needed just a BIT more of black, but I rushed, didn't mask all the other parts and some black paint dust settled on the nice yellow paint :( So I had to touch that up, but the yellow doesn't cover all that well so I had to lay down a couple of new layers.

Finally I lost patience and thought: I'll just go with this and put some clear on it. but then I was too eager to finish and sprayed too much clear at one time so a big droplet of clear dropped on the black part. On the yellow I had also found another spot to touch up again.

I first let the clear dry (only 2 hours of drying time on this coat! yay!), then looked at the droplet of clear and it ate through ALL layers of my paint! I could see the white/beige right on.. So I started sanding around this droplet-spot (and on the yellow) and tried to touch it up locally, but when I sprayed the first layer of color-paint on and came back when it was dry I found out that the paint reacted with the clear (or the other way around) and a large portion of the panel was a big mess:eek:

So I decided to give it just one more try: sand everything down big time (not all the way through, but I used 240-grain sand-paper so you get the idea) and spray just one more layer of both colors and leave it like that...

I started with the black, masked all the yellow (and also the black parts of the stripe) and then painted, it actually came out quite good. Then I did the yellow (masked everything black, and also the yellow part of the stripes) and sprayed. At first it looked real nice (well relatively real nice...) but I went away for the weekend...

That would be the last mistake on this panel for now: I left the masking tape on there the whole time and when I came back yesterday and pulled it off I found that half of the sticky-glue-stuff from the tape loved the panel so much it decided to stay on there:eek:

I tried scratching it off with my nails, but that didn't work.. Then I tried some acetone (nail remover from my sister) on the back-bit of the panel: It ate the paint, so that didn't work either...

Finally I got most of it off using a lot of water and some elbow-grease... You can still see it if you know where to look, but it's not really noticeable in the pictures...

So, that's the story of "the haunted beige side-panel that didn't want to be painted..." on to the pictures:

PICTURES

Here's the panel on it's own
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0447.jpg

A close-up of the striping
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0450.jpg

A 3/4 view. I know I still didn't put anything (black) behind the floppy-slot but I will do that later. Or maybe I will make two USB-ports in the slot, but as I said: later
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0454.jpg

A bit closer look at the seem between the panels
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0457.jpg

And one final even-closer-up
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0457.jpg

I hope you enjoy this panel because it was an agonizing pain in the behind to get it like this...:neutral:

keep safe - silverdemon

[jiggiwiddit]

That looks ace, very striking. Well done:up:

[Couch3ater]

Very nice. =D

[msmrx57]

It may have been a pain, but it looks great! :up:

[BuzzKillington]

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj67/jiggiwiddit/rd400_02.jpg


Is that an RD400? My dad's buddy pulled the motor out of a wrecked one and threw it in a 3 wheeler. It made for a crazy sand-drag toy. I saw it on ebay a year or so ago from the seller he sold it to. Had tons of carb problems.

Found a picture of it in someone elses photobucket using google lmfao!!!
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z262/Kevin_Jones_photos/Picture255.jpg

[jiggiwiddit]

Is that an RD400? My dad's buddy pulled the motor out of a wrecked one and threw it in a 3 wheeler. It made for a crazy sand-drag toy. I saw it on ebay a year or so ago from the seller he sold it to. Had tons of carb problems.

Carb probs? Anything to do with all the sand? :dead: RD400s did have pretty crap carbs tho.
Nice buggy, I bet it went like stink.

[silverdemon]

That looks ace, very striking. Well done:up:


Very nice. =D


It may have been a pain, but it looks great! :up:

Thanks all! Now that it has been a couple of days since I finished that panel and I don't look at it from up close (but from my seat behind my desk) I am actually pretty satisfied with the result.
OK, it's not perfect, but you have to look real careful to see the mess-up spots...

I started painting the fan today. Needs at least one more coat before it is finished, so pictures might come late this week, but more likely next week...

keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

Hey there!

Two coats of paint were sufficient because of; 1) the fan being white to begin with. 2) the fan will obviously be spinning and thus you won't see most of the imperfections etc.

So here are some pictures:

First off I forgot to take a picture from a straight angle to the side-panel, so on this picture you can see the seem between the front-panel and side-panel. Also You can see that some of the paintwork here is quite messy:neutral:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0461.jpg

Front view of the case with 'new' fan. I know you can look into the case through the fan, but when the fan spins and there's no flash to light everything you can't see into it.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0459.jpg

a 3/4 view of the whole case. as noted before, you can't actually look into the case (through the fan) without a flash
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0460.jpg

And finally one more picture to show how it looks when the fan spins. Unfortunately I didn't have enough (white) light on the spot where it runs, so the picture is a bit yellow-ish, but you get the idea...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0465.jpg

That's all for now, I'm off for the weekend

keep safe - silverdemon

[jiggiwiddit]

Good job silverdemon. Now you've had some practice, pick some faster drying paint for next time ;)
I mostly use acrylics. They have good opacity (covering power), work well on metal/plastic and dry fast so mistakes are quickly fixed. And they look great after a clear coat. :)

[silverdemon]

Good job silverdemon. Now you've had some practice, pick some faster drying paint for next time ;)
I mostly use acrylics. They have good opacity (covering power), work well on metal/plastic and dry fast so mistakes are quickly fixed. And they look great after a clear coat. :)

Thanks for the heads-up and next time 'round I WILL look at the drying time before buying paint! It's just that I thought: "well this shop is closest to my house and sells paint, I'll go there..." :neutral:

Anyways, I've got an update for you all!

Painted the top panel last week. Took me two coats to make it cover really nice and then another two coats to do some touch-up stuff.

First a picture of the panel all by itself
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0466.jpg

And this is how it looks on the case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0468.jpg

Note that I'm not ready yet, because there are two sides to the case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0471.jpg

And finally I tried to make a shot in which it gets clear how nice this paint looks. It is really shiny, if it weren't black (but white or maybe grey) you could easily use it for a mirror! The picture is a bit blurry though, because I had to hold the panel in one hand and the camera in the other:dead:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0474.jpg

If you look careful enough you can actually read some of the letters in the reflection...
oh and by the way: I didn't put any clear-coat on this panel, it's just the paint

That's all for now. Next up is the last side-panel which will hopefully be done a bit quicker than the other side-panel...

keep safe - silverdemon

[msmrx57]

Looks great!

[biggoofy]

Looks awesome, front and side panels line up nicely. Keep up the good work. I was just wondering - did you sand the pieces down before you started any paint?

[silverdemon]

Looks great!


Looks awesome, front and side panels line up nicely. Keep up the good work. I was just wondering - did you sand the pieces down before you started any paint?

Thanks!

Yeah I sanded the parts before painting, with 240 paper, then again with my Brillo-pad/scotch-sponge-thing because with 240 you can see the scratches...
Then I paint 1 layer, then use the sponge-thing again to roughen it up a bit and then another layer, and so on...

When I have to touch-up stuff I might grab the 240 paper again because that's a bit quicker, but I always finish with the scotch-stuff before painting

[silverdemon]

Hey there,

Since there were some questions about HOW I do the painting (and also because I know you like to see this stuff) I decided to make some 'in progress' pictures of the last panel. Explaining on the way what I do and how I do it.

First of, the panel as it was:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0476.jpg

You can see there are some stickers on the top left and that there's a nasty dirty spot center-top
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0477.jpg

Those will have to go and be sanded until they're not visible anymore, so here comes the 240-grit sandpaper:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0481.jpg

It's really 240:up:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0482.jpg

So after some sticker-carnage and about 5-10min of sanding we have a nice sanded smooth panel
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0483.jpg

but hold on! when you look close you can see that it's not smooth at all:eek: there are all kinds of scratches in there!
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0485.jpg

No problem though! out comes the spongy scotch-thing/Brillo-pad:banana:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0486.jpg

After another 5-10 minutes of 'sanding' the panel is finished. But to show you the difference between the sanded part and the scotched part I made a picture during the scotching. Mind you, this pictures is edited (added a lot more contrast) to show you what I mean:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0488.jpg

On the left part of the picture above I have only sanded the panel with my 240-grit paper and on the right part I also scotched it with my spongy-thing. A lot of difference, which you will see in the painting later on (the 240 'scratches' are actually visible through 2-3 layers of paint)

Next I painted the bottom part of the panel yellow, but as you know, the curing-time for the paint is 16 hours, so the picture of the first paint layer will come in the next update (probably somewhere next week)...

keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

Yellow paint update:bunny:

So after the sanding in the previous update I put down the first layer of yellow paint
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0489.jpg

You can see there are still some imperfections in the paint because it doesn't cover that well in one layer

Also In the next picture you can see that I kinda forgot about the bottom edge of the panel... This will be out of view because it is at the bottom of the case, so one other layer will suffice
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0491.jpg

Then I did some more scotching with the spongy thing (light sanding) and then laid down another coat of yellow
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0492.jpg

Next I tried to make a nice close-up shot, but I failed miserably:dead:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0498.jpg

After the second layer I was satisfied (enough) with how the panel looked, so I went on to do some masking for the next phase
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0499.jpg

In the next picture you can see that Sanex deospray only costs 5,99 euro for 3 spray cans!... However, that's not really important, You can also see I masked the stripes on the panel with special paper-like tape (I believe this is about the same stuff that comes in blue in the states...). The larger parts I masked with pieces of (news-) paper
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0500.jpg

I did some reeaall light sanding with the scotch-pad because I am afraid to 'damage' the edges of the tape and then I sprayed the first layer of black on. Those pictures will come in the next update though...

so that's it for now
keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

Hi there!

Well, this second side panel is going very very much quicker and better than the other (so far), I already finished the striping! took only two layers to cover nicely and I didn't mess up anything:banana:

On to the photo's
This is a picture of the first layer only.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0501.jpg

When you look closely you can see some weird paint reaction near the edges of the masking tape... I guess this is a reaction between the paint and the glue of the tape that was still there after I tore of the pieces of tape (not sure though)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0502.jpg

Not to worry though, I sanded the stripes with my scotch-pad and laid down another coat of black:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0503.jpg

When you look close now you can see the edges are pretty sharp and the reaction-things have disappeared...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0504.jpg

Another close-up shot to show you the shiny-ness of the black (yellow also reflects but is not nearly as shiny as the black)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0505.jpg

So that's that for the striping, let me know what you think...

I've got one more picture of the prep-work for the top part of the panel. I masked the whole bottom part, the edge with the usual tape and the larger areas with newspaper (this time it is an actual newspaper)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0513.jpg
I also sanded the top part again before I took this picture. I already sprayed the first layer of black on and (as expected) I doesn't cover 100% so one or two more layers are required. Pictures of that in the next update

keep safe - silverdemon

[silverdemon]

Right... on to the final update of this panel

Here's a picture of the panel after the first layer of black, if you look carefully enough you can see it doesn't cover 100% (as expected)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0514.jpg

After the first layer I sanded the whole thing down again with the scotch-pad
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0520.jpg

A close-up of all the scratches I made with the sanding
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0523.jpg

Another close-up. Note that on this picture also the paint sort of reacts near the tape... Also note that I put another piece of tape on top to make sure the whole thing was tight
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0524.jpg

Ok, on to the results then...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0527.jpg

Looks pretty ok if you ask me...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0529.jpg

Ok, and one more show-off on the shiny-ness of the black paint... (you can even see the USB logo in the reflection!)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0530.jpg

And this is how it looks on the case
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j139/rstakelbeek/Hazard%20mod/IMGP0532.jpg

The second side panel went very well, much better than the first side panel actually, which brings me to the following TOP-TIP:

When painting, always start with the part you care least about

I started of with the front and the side panel that are visible when the case sits on it's spot, but during the project I learned more and more how to work with the paint... meaning the parts I did last actually looked the best!
So if you ever paint parts of your case, start with the parts that are least visible, so you can experiment a bit with your paint...

Anyways, that's it for now... I'll post some final pictures sometime next week I think...

keep safe - silverdemon

[msmrx57]

Nice job! :up: That's why they say practice, practice, practice.