Project: LilBlue

[slaveofconvention]

This project is going to be my first real attempt at painting a case "properly". I painted an old IBM mini-tower a couple years back in Australia, and while it came out ok, it was a long way from GOOD - rough finish, etc. I can blame that in part on the materials I used at the time, but there is no denying that it was also caused by my lack of knowledge, experience, and patience.

This time around there will be no corners cut, and no shortcuts taken. Actually, you COULD argue that it's my second "proper" painting project as I DID start Project: Neo before I started this, but Neo will be put on hold for a week or so until this one is done. The reason is a pretty simple one. This case is worthless - it's an old POS Patriot "booktype" PC containing a 400mhz Celeron processor - not really worth having in this day and age - but it will be a good place for me to practice the painting techniques involved before I take on the more complex (and more valuable) case I'm using for Project: Neo

I actually forgot to take a picture of the case in it's original state, so the one in this post is of an identical computer (the only difference being that I've doubled the RAM and replaced the DVD-ROM with a combo Drive). It's small, it's simple, and because of the way it's so damned compact inside, there isn't a huge amount of modding potential, but it'll serve its purpose as a painting practice....

Excuse the multiple posts - but I'm actually a bit into this already - so a quick flurry to get y'all up to date

[slaveofconvention]

A very simple computer to take apart this is.... 3 screws and the entire outer sleeve just slides free, a couple clips and the front panel pops off - dead easy.

Except. I learned my lesson on Project: Lord Of The Rings about buttons getting too tight with paint on them, and clear things being covered up, so a little more stripping of the front panel is required. All of the parts were attached with little plastic welds, so the only way to get them off, without risking screwing up the tip of my soldering iron, was to cut cut and cut again with a stanley knife until they all came free.

The end result is one totally empty front panel.

And a couple bags of loose bits to be painted/protected as required.

[slaveofconvention]

Ok, so nothing new really here, I'm just going through the motions of getting things ready for the paint that's basically the whole point of this particular worklog.

Taped the buttons n stuff up first, last thing I need is them flying off across the desk when the air from the spray can hits them and added a coat of primer, which didnt actually seem to take too well - will check tomorrow - I did kinda skimp on the preperations so may be a case of re-doing them tomorrow (or later).

Got the front of the case all primed up - what you see there is it pretty much ready for paint - its been prepared with the usual Panel-Wipe, Scotchbrite, Airblast for dust, wipe with a Tak-Rag prep method, then had 2 good layers of primer added, a good gentle but thorough sand with wet 1200 grit paper in between each layer and now it's a smooth as a, well, smooth thing.

The outer wrap - tis the only name that springs to mind as it goes all the way around 4 sides of the puter, was a lil more problematic. I gave it a good prep as per usual, but I think I left a touch of panel-wipe or water on it, as when I primed it up, I got a bit of a reaction.

Hoping to cover it with the second later was in vain, so gave it a damned good sand down where the reaction took place and will give it a good clean and re-paint during the next work session.

That's all for now folks....

[slaveofconvention]

grrrr - best shift those pics onto my own server eh? LOL

[EDIT: In case you're confused LOL - the images above in this thread were all dead]

[simon275]

painting's fun like that ah! What colour u gonna paint it?

[slaveofconvention]

Got some Metallic Blue basecoat from work for pennies - it's as good as anythin as this is little more than a paintin practice.....

Having said that, I DO have some extremely cool lookin "Rage Extreme" paint in a couple different colours, so if it goes well, it might end up with a very expensive lookin colour changing paint on it.....

[simon275]

I DO have some extremely cool lookin "Rage Extreme" paint in a couple different colours, so if it goes well, it might end up with a very expensive lookin colour changing paint on it.....

What the hell is that? That would be so cool. Ive heard of paint that changes colour slowly overtime with changes in temperature so it reflects the seasons. Blue in winter white in spring and so on. But colour chaning paint the colour changes I talked about where subtle ones but will yours like go from one different colour to another.

[slaveofconvention]

*Copied & Pasted from another forum but it answers the question*

I don't know if you lot remember, but I work in a car paintshop. I've been bugging one of the sales reps to get me some "samples" for a couple months and today he turned up with some. It's kinda hard to describe the stuff I got - it's called Rage-Extreme - and I didn't get very much of any of it, but there should be enough to do a case in each of the colours he was so wonderful as to get me and 2 or 3 in the last colour - I only asked for 1 and he came in with 4 of them!!!!

Anyway - here's a link to the manufacturers site with some gallery pics of the colour effects - and the colours I got are:

Spectraflare Silver - this one is the REAL prize - it's £495+vat per litre to buy - I got about 1/10th of a litre which, when thinned and used properly should cover about 3 sq.m

Magenta/Gold 1/10th litre

Gold/Silver 1/10th litre

Green/Purple 1/5th litre

To buy what I was given today, would have cost me a good £200 so I'm one happy bunny.... You actually paint the item black, then use this paint as a VERY thin topcoat to get the effect. I can't wait to try it out but I'm scared to death cos if i get it wrong, there's no going back lol

I think the laptop might just be getting the treatment for starters....

I'm ALMOST tempted to buy one of those awful Asus Vento cases - the curves would REALLY show off the effects..... Resist resist, they're horrible and impractical dammit!

[pcclan]

well it's been three years is this one done yet

[slaveofconvention]

Nope - lol - everything but the final coat of colour is done - but right now, I don't have anywhere to paint - by the time K-9 is ready for paint - the painting area will be too!

Still have all of the bits -just had some tough times - moved 5 times since I started this - finally in a house that I will be in for the forseeable future - hence re-starting the modding....