Hello, and Happy New Year!

An idea just disembarked from my train of thought. I want to paint my case, preferably with some high quality, reflective and shiny automotive paint. I am not clear yet on what color I want, but I'll decide sometime...

What I need to know is exactly what paint that I want, be it acrylic enamel, or laquer or whatever. And what equipment I may need. I have two good rental places nearby that I can easily get painting supplies from. I really don't want to rent something, but I will if it offers alot better quality than anything else. And what do I need to put over the paint? Like clearcoat or something? I also want to know how much this will cost...:dead:...

Thanks.

And if the original thread was deleted by someone, please tell me why, and please refrain from deleting this one :D

Ahh here we are I get to write this long reply because the origional was deleted along with the whole thread, My father is an expert painter(for over 27 years he's been a painter) and he's helped me paint a few cases, yes you can use automotive paint on the case, and yes it can stick very well and never flake off, if applied correctly with appropriate products....bare in mind without sufficent equipment this is impossible....

Brief Overview:
To start out you have to sand it down, I'll tell you the grade of sand paper in my instructions which I'll post tomorrow hopefully, then you use automotive pre-cleaner, and clean it, then you have to apply stuff called bull-dog to all the plastic parts, it partially resoluvates the plastic so the paint will stick to it instantly, then you have to take a tack cloth and lightly rub it(its like cheese cloth, it removes excess dust) then you spray everything down with primer, a coat or two, then you get it with the tack cloth again, and then you apply the paint, yet again the tack cloth, and then you apply a poly-urathane based clear coat, high-gloss if you like, in the end there may be dust in the paint and you'll have to wet sand all the parts with dust in the clear, and buff it back up with a buffer and compound.....the best thing is to acctually be in a paint facility with a micron air filtration system so you dont get dust in the paint...

I'll tell you what paint exactly you'll need in my next post , and dont think you can do this with a $2 can of spray paint its alot of work to get it to look good.....

yeah your old thread is gone.

You could do it without auto paint.

Use a gloss paint, and remember to prime and clean your surface first.

Doing it by yourself will cost anywhere from $8 to $40+.

Do you have any equipment at all Vehementi? Cause if not you're going to be alot better off just buying a specially painted one online....I mean unless you want to ship your case to me and have me paint it...my dad has a full paint shop and everything....just a thought

Infact I have created a website for it, but its only for the used car sales part of his buisness....its pretty sad right now, I just started it and havent had time to put any pictures or anything on it of the cars...:(

www.659-acar.com

I don't have much, vassil...lol...

This may be more than I accounted for. But, I really want to do this. I really can rent the stuff, or perhaps borrow it from someone...

Vassil -> instead of doing it in a paint shop, I could actually go into my bathroom and turn on the shower to increase the humidity in the room, then all the dust will fall to the floor. Would I have to do that for the entire process? Or just one part of it?

Well if you decided on using automotive paint thats out of the question, your bathing would have a brand new paint job, I dont care how moist you get it in their, automotive paint gives off such thick overspray and fumes everything would have paint on it and you would either be dead or high laying on the floor from no ventilation..lol

Originally posted by vassil3427
Well if you decided on using automotive paint thats out of the question, your bathing would have a brand new paint job, I dont care how moist you get it in their, automotive paint gives off such thick overspray everything would have paint on it and you would either be dead or high laying on the floor from no ventilation..lol

:eek: Ok nevermind! How would outside do? I'll probably end up having to do it out there anyway :haha:

Originally posted by vassil3427
....I mean unless you want to ship your case to me and have me paint it...

Gah shipping a 30lb case to Ohio and back will cost way too much...even more than doing it myself probably...

Well you can do anything if you want to, if you did it in say a garage? you could take a lawn hose and spray a bit in the garage to help lessen the dust, you could rent the equipment but it might be expensive, you'd need an air compressor, a spray gun(preferrably gravity fed, not some old thing), the paint will be expensive, like $50 for a pint..more if you want Red...the clear coat has to be bought in atleast quarts, and thats like $100....The bull-dog stuff is like $100 for a quart, then $10 for sand paper.....lol....I'm telling you, unless you pay someone to do it its not gonna be worth it....

Not going through Ohio anytime soon are you?lol...we could paint your case......you should just either maybe get some sand paper, sand it down, by some cheap primer in a can for metal, some spray paint, and a few cans of spray clear coat, if you get the clear on fast and thick enough it'll look ok:grinthumb

Or maybe just buy a painted case?

Read this (http://peripherals.about.com/library/weekly/aa041500a.htm) guide and tell me if it's legit...if it would work. I don't want to use the same paint, however. Anything that you would add to it?

He only used 3 spray cans of paint...

Well for a budget paint job yes it would work, but I'd say he's probably had some of that paint come off on his hands, he didnt bother to sand it at all, which means the paint has nothing to stick to, when you sand it, you give the paint particles little valleys to grab into, with his idea, the paint is not durable at all. If you choose this way you must sand it down though, with some 2000 grit sand paper, and you HAVE to use primer for metal...all of which should be very inexpensive at your local hardware store:grinthumb

Ok I didnt see that he used clear coat, so it wouldnt come of in his hands.lol. but still it would be very non-durable to any scratchs..or accidents without being sanded

Actually Veh, if you want to just follow his guide, sanding is a good and easy thing to do, but its not like you're paint job has to be bullet proof....his guide would work fine for a budget paint job, just dont go for a solid color like blue or red...cause its gonna look funny and un even, thats why he used that stone slate stuff...so you couldnt see the flaws, look at his own picture of the side, see if you can see the uneveness of itcase side (http://peripherals.about.com/library/graphics/paint/final-paintjob-lg.jpg)

Oha nd you'd want to paint even around the bay covers, look how cheap that is, you can see all that nasty white from where he didnt paint

Heh I just had another idea. I could just paint some of my front cover, and I also want to put a stencil job on the window.

Here (http://www.thermaltake.com/products/cases/5000a.htm)'s a link to my case if you were wondering.

See the front cover? The door that closes on my drives? I want to paint both sides, the parts to both sides of the Thermaltake X logo, medium blue. This part is steel. Sort of on the light side. I also want to paint my drive covers black, with blue buttons. That part is plastic. The top half of the front cover on my case is steel, and the lower half is plastic.

Actually now I want to mimic Alienware, and paint "VEHEMENTI" down the left side of my case, just like they do, although their's is engraved. Paint it blue, with black lettering, all the way down. Damnit that would look so incredibly cool. I would like to keep the current finish for the lettering, I will like paste paper letters on there or something.

So now I could just use spray paint, correct?

I am so crazy :cool:

Dude that case is awesome, why do you want to risk screwing it up? lol, yes you can just use spray paint.... but dont blame me if it sucks when you get done:haha:

Yes, but this paint job will leave it looking even more awesome. You can't give me anything else that could make the paint look any better? C'mon.

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....

:confused: 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...:D 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:p 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:D

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 (http://www.thermaltake.com/products/cases/5000a.htm).

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

I'll post before and after photos :D

nice.

Well I'm done.

Drive covers went great, they match the faceplate fairly well and the red buttons are excellent. Haven't done the power button yet, but that will be soon enough.

The stencil job went very well. I messed up the M after the painting was done, I scratched it then it all went to hell from there. Ended up removing almost the whole letter. I'll redo that letter...

Can't take finished pics now :haha:

Dont forget the shag carpet for the top and the fuzzy dice. ROFL

Uhhh...

Well Veh, did it ever get totally done? Where's the pics?:rolleyes:

Pics? Huh? You can't make me post pics.

lol, Does it look that bad?:haha:

I never said it looked bad. What compelled you to think so? Sure I have some cleaning up to do with paint thinner but that's about it.

We have pics!

And here's a straight shot of the case...

It doesn't look as bad as you'd think from these pics - it looks rather good actually. This pic looks really bad, but trust me - it looks great.