Introduction
Disassembly
Masking
Painting
Re-Assembly
Introduction
Case fans come in all shapes and sizes and most important to this tutorial, all kinds of colors. This tutorial will walk you through how to paint your fans to match your case mod theme.
Time: Total 3 hours of working time - Allow 2 hours for disassembly, masking, and painting with 24 hours to allow the paint to dry. For re-assembly and clean-up allow an additional hour.
To demonstrate, I'll show you how I modded an Arctic Cooling 9 PWM fan. These fans are a little different than standard case fans but don't worry, the important steps are similar.
Parts List
X-acto knife or similar small razor knife
Small screwdriver
Small pick or bent paper clip
Painter's tape
Lubricating oil
Alcohol or cleaning agent
Paper towels
Paint for fan
Small tube 3/16" - 1/4"
Find the smallest straight screwdriver and pick that you can. You'll use these to remove the retainer washer.
The small tube is useful for putting the washers back on the spindle.
You'll use the papertowels and alcohol for paint prep and removing sticker residue.
The painter tape is for masking the fan internals. For paint, I'd recommend Fusion plastic paint, Plastikote, or Testors. I wanted to try some different colors and textures so I picked some speciality Rustoleum paint.
Here's the fan before modding with the standard black plastic.
And after, with copper fan blades and brass housing. Here's how: