I want to paint my case, 2.0.

Well as far as black lettering down the case, buy some black rubbery adhesive letters(like you stick on mail boxes?) and thats done.... If you paint your drive covers, be sure to remove them from the drive before painting them:grinthumb ...

ok enough joking, this can look good if we try, you need to lightly sand that cover thing as much as possibly, and especially down in crevises and on the edges, make sure its sanded well with 2000 grit sand paper....you'll want to apply nice even layers of paint in a back and fourth application, halfway overlapping the last line of paint until surface is covered, make sure you get around the edges, you may have to apply numerous coatings to get an even look, IF you apply clear coating, make sure you apply a thick enough coating as you go over it, with the clear coat, esspecially aerosal stuff, it dries quick, and if you apply a coating, and then it starts to dry too quick, and you apply another layer, it may crack the upper layer and give you an alligator look(crack, jagged)(Actually its a really neat look some people use to make hot-rods look cool, lol...) You'll want to apply it the same way as the paint, back and fourth, half-way overlapping the previous line of clear, try to keep it as dust free as possible, maybe doing it outside wouldnt be so bad right now, since you probably have snow dont you? in the end it will look good Veh!:grinthumb

I have an old Mac that I'll practice on first. It's all beige plastic, but man would it look good black & red. Then I have my other computer, which is metal, although I don't know if the current user would enjoy it painted...

Vassil -> what kind of spray paint would look good on both metal and plastic? And one of those guides mentioned that some spray paints are like acid for plastic - they eat right through them. As you can imagine, I do NOT want this happening to my precious case. What kind of spray paint, exactly, do I need?

I think I'll just do red letters down the side, and black w/ red button drive covers. My case is already black and red, so it would look better like that than w/ blue.

And what paint would look well on plexiglass? Can I not paint it?

Well I consulted my father on this, and he said,

You should buy laquer spray paint, and it will NOT eat the plastic as long as you do medium to light coatings of the paint at a time, then let it dry, then apply another coating, if you apply to much it stays wet and then could eat the plastic, but as long as you do modest coatings you will have no problem, And you should get Urathane clear coating if you want a nice shine:grinthumb

As far as the plexiglass, you need to get some triple ott steel wool, and some sudzy water and lightly scrub it, then paint it just like the case, just dont apply it too thick, then it will run everywhere....

Wouldn't steel wool scratch the crap out of the plexiglass? It's very easy to scratch, especially with metal. You sure? What does the scrubbing acomplish?

The 000(tripple ott as Vassil called it) will dull the plexiglass, in essense, yes it will scratch the heck out of it. The thing is, if you don't rough the surface, the paint won't stick.

Sandpaper would actually scratch the plexiglass and give it a rough finish unless you used a very high grit, but the 000 steelwool will give it a brushed look. The paint should smooth that out, if in doubt you can use a primer suitable for plastics then paint it.

OK I went to the hardware store today and picked up two cans of plastic/metal spray paint - black and red.

Will Polyurethane accomplish the same as Urethane clear coating? Are they the same? I have alot of Polyurethane clear coat as I'm staining a bookshelf.

How would I paint a round plastic button? It's my power button, about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. I'm thinking of inserting like a rolled piece of paper into the space between the button and the faceplate and just spraying into there.

What about the clear coat on the drive covers? Won't it make it look worse, because I'd like it to be as like as the rest of the front plate as possible.

So I'm gonna do the following:

-Red lettering down the left side of the front - VEHEMENTI.
-Red buttons - power and reset.
-Black drive covers with red buttons.

And that's it, for now...

Yes you may not wish to clear coat your drive bays and such because of the shine, you can buy clear coat that isnt shiny, its dull, so it would match better, you might just want to take the button out of the case if you can. and yes polyurathane will work....

I don't know if I can take the button out - but I'll try.

I might even stencil something on my monitor... It's an NEC MultiSync P1150, and it has really wide borders around the screen...like 1.5"

Ah and what should I use as the stencil? What should I cut the letters out of?

Well if you paint your monitor make sure you cover all the ventilation area of the monitor so no paint gets in there....otherwise it might smell quite a bit when you turn the monitor on... And they sell precut plastic stencil things at hardware stores...or like at the store Staples(dont know if you have one near you) You'll probably have to buy a few to get all the letters you need...and maybe go to a craft store to get some cool stencil designs for you monitor

Do you have any posterboard? It it would work pretty good. Or you could go to Wal*Mart and buy some letter stencils in the craft dept for a couple $.

Or do what StormBringer just said and go to WalMArt....they sell everything

Isn't that the truth :dead:

OK I have some posterboard. What I'm planning on doing is printing out the letters I want onto real computer paper, then taping the real computer paper with the letters onto the posterboard, and cutting out the letters with a razor or utility knife.

I need to find a good font with 2" long and 1.5" tall letters though...

Good plan it sounds like to me:grinthumb

The trick is getting it aligned perfectly straight on my case...:dead:

Alright well, I did that. I practiced the actual stencil on a big cardboard box about 15 times...and I really have a feel for the spray can now. I'll probably do the real thing tomorrow, when the stencil itself dries.

I think that was probably the tough part, making the stencil...:dead:

Well I wish you the best of luck:grinthumb And if not may she R.I.P.:dead: (The case of course)..lol, I think you'll do fine on it...

Eh, well, I think I'll do fine too. I actually can't wait...

Man it's gonna look good.

I'll post pics of the process soon.

but whats it look like now (before)?

Like this.

Looks great now, but it will look even better w/ a good stencil job down the front

I'll post before and after photos