Stealth Mouse - A 4 hour mod using Plasti-Dip

Hi guys, just thought I'd post a quick guide to what I did between getting home from Uni this afternoon and watching 24 tonight, any one else completely hooked on this season?

Basically I had my old Intellimouse Explorer just sitting there, dirty and beige, and I thought... there is the perfect opportunity to try out some Aerosol Plasti-Dip that I picked up the other day. Basically the idea was to take the mouse apart and then paint it using Black Plasti-Dip (read: spray-on rubber grip) and gloss black to make a stylish black 'stealth' mouse. So... here's what I started with:

1730 (5.30pm)

If you look closely you can even see the nasty brown grime of an uncleaned backup mouse :eek:. Nasty. As you can see, its an old USB Intellimouse in wonderfull silver and beige. So, if I am going to try and make it more interesting first things first, pull it to bits (the fun part).

1731 (5.31pm)

As you probably know, to take apart one of these bad boys you simply need to peel off the skate feet at the back, this is really easy if you have some spare dental equipment lying around (you may notice one of the front ones that looks like its been pulled off, just shows that is pays to pay attention!). Anyway, under the back two feet you will find some small phillips head screws, remove these then gently pull the base away from the rest of the mouse, the base is hooked into the front of the mouse so pull it towards the back and it should pop right out.

1733 (5.33pm)

Once you have it pulled apart put the base aside, we will come back to this later, all the parts within the top part of the mouse should come out really easily now that its open. Start with the 'thumb' and 'pinky' buttons on either sides then take out the 'left & right' click buttons.

1734 (5.34pm)

Once you have all the peices apart it is time to prepare the surfaces to be painted. My plan is to paint the beige parts and the left and right side buttons in the Plasti-Dip rubber and the silver and base in black gloss. So first things first, rub the surface back with some fine sandpaper (important for the glossy finish that it be fine so that the finish is nice and smooth).

1801 (6.01pm)

Once you have the surface nicely sanded some hot soapy water and then a fresh rinse to clear away any loose particles and then its ready for undercoat. (At this stage you might also like to wash the mouse wheel as they tend to accumulate little bits of skin between the ribs. Ercgh!)

1810 (6.10pm)

I undercoated all the parts (the base was done seperately because I am an idiot) in two coats of satin black (which is kind of matte similar to the look of a black satin bed sheet... ooh la la, got kink?). After this I seperated the parts and then gave the main peice, left/right and side buttons three coats of Plasti-Dip 30 minutes apart. I gave the centre housing peice (formerly silver) and the base (with the space for the optical sensor masked off) 3 coats of gloss black 45 mins apart (the directions say an hour but I'm against the clock dammit!).

2025 (8.25pm)
Once they had dried I clear coated the base and left the whole thing for another hour to dry.

2130 (9.30pm) 10 Minutes untill 24 begins
Satisfied that all the parts are dry enough to reassemble the mouse I carefully put the parts back together, how? In the opposite order to how I took them apart, duh. The base was snug fitting back in but everything went together better than new, the mouse was obviously heavier and felt more solid with a really nice weight to it (unlike my new Intellimouse Explorer which weighs about 3 grams and I have to hold it down incase it blows away, peice of crap, I'm buying a logi laser mouse as soon as my new computer arrives [if it doesn't already come with one! :)]). I checked that all the buttons were activating their microswitches and was pleased to find that they were working a treat. So all that left was to put the screws back in, replace the feet (I have an order of super slide feet on the way so the old ones are back on for now) and voila, a sexy rubberised Intellimouse...

2139 (9.39pm)

You can see the sexy finish that the aerosol Plasti-Dip gives, it almost looks like leather! I am really pleased with the outcome, it has given my old tardy mouse a new lease on life.

So there you go, the simplest mouse mod you can do but with very nice results and an example of the kind of finish you can get with plasti-dip. I'm pretty happy with it and it should tide me over untill I get the time to do some more...

I've got to find time to finish this off at some point...

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