Laptop painting 101!

Personally I’ve always toyed around with the idea of painting my old
Compaq Presario 2200 when I got a new laptop; however the daunting task
of taking everything apart on a laptop scared me away for a while. So I
got a System76 laptop and love it, but ideas kept spinning themselves
in my mind
‘I could paint my old one like I wanted!’ or ‘Add an external antenna
jack!’. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore I took the plunge, and save
for a few parts I’m totally happy with it.

So what was wrong with it?

Nothing! Not a single damn thing was wrong with it. Here look

As you can see it, well doesn’t look pretty. So I went and got some
Krylon Fusion in blue and black. Fusion is a ‘new’ (I say new it might
not be).
type of paint that will bond with the plastic. Well cool, I got some of
that and Latex gloves, rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and sand paper
(150 and 400 grit)
Before you even THINK about attempting this. Let me tell you that not
only will this void your warranty (I didn’t have one) but it can also
kill your laptop if you go too fast and snap something. Hell touching
the screen in the wrong place could shatter the back light (That is if your laptop isn’t using LED’s) and kill that part. So think this through before trying
this.
Painting this was pretty easy, in fact the easiest part of the whole
thing.

Lets start!

Lets start this! First step is to take your laptop 100% apart. Even
take the Motherboard out of the case. Scared yet? Well each laptop is
different so I can’t give a end all be all guide for this step
Let me show you what mine looked like after I got the keyboard off.

Ok, well I
also took the top part of plastic off the laptop before I took this
picture. Oh well. Everything is layered on laptops to keep space to a
minimum.
With me it was; plastic facade, keyboard, speakers, middle layer of
plastic, motherboard. With many few smaller hurdles for me to traverse.

I got it apart, now what?

Really? Cool, now what you
need to do is don some rubber gloves. See the oils in your hands can
keep paint from sticking. So what you do is first clean off the surface
of the area with the rubbing alcohol and cotton balls.
Then get the sand paper out and go over the case with the 150 grit
first and back over again with the 400 grit. You can replace those with
some finer or coarser sand paper if you want.
Don’t over sand though as you can break the plastic.

Now here I’ve taped off what I don’t want to paint blue. Simple masking tape and paper. Wax paper works well in this instance.

Same here.

Painting guide lines

After you sand it down where you want to clean it again with
the alcohol. Then mask off unwanted areas and spray! When you spray
make sure it’s in thin even coats. You will continue to sand, clean and
spray until you are fully happy with the outcome. Now some tips. It
says “dries in 15 minutes!” that’s total horse shit. It takes a good 45
minutes for it to fully dry to the touch. As you
can see on the lid I touched it when it was still a bit tacky. Well it
didn’t sand out. So I will leave you with a few higher res pictures of
my laptop.

DSCF1382.jpg
DSCF1383.jpg
DSCF1381.jpg

What I did: Painted my old laptop, and added an external antenna jack.
Let me talk about the latter for a second. All it is, is a simple SMA
to u.fl connector. The u.fl connector is attached to the wireless card
on the inside of the computer
and the SMA connector is threaded through a hole in the case.
What I will do: Atheros internal wireless card to replace the Broadcom
card in it. More ram.

If you enjoyed this please join the forums and leave a message.

EDIT: Ok, I guess I rushed with selecting paint. Automotive paint is even better. Use that instead

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