Painting a laptop

[otaku]

Ok so I have a dell inspiron 8200 I'd like to possibly paint a differen color is it possible and if so how and what do I use etc.

thanks

[sakor1]

It's perfectly possible, but if you don't have much experience with painting this type of thing could turn out quite nasty (peeling, bubbling, uneven, etc). Instead, you can actually give this model a splash of colour without resorting to that by changing the palm rests, it is also rather inexpensive, why not try one of these?:

Blue


Blue Marble


Yellow


Purple


Silver


Stu

[Charles P. Jefferies]

I'd suggest doing what sakor said...get one of those panels. It's a lot safer, and easier.

[drumfu]

there's a thread on notebookforums where someone did it to their 8600 (or was it 8500?).

it's a labrious process and the problem is that you are painting on top of the plastic instead of having the color molded into the plastic.

this means that you will, no doubt, for sure, 100% guaranteed, get chipping on the corners of the notebook. like the chips you get in the hood of your car from tiny rocks on the road.

[otaku]

Yeah I have silver right now installed and am ordering blue but thought I could do something more. Thanks though I think I will wait and get a falcon

[lgandg]

Use one the new spray paints for plastic and top it with a coat of clear spray lacquer (otherwise the paint will rub off). I strongly suggest taking it apart and painting only the plastic parts so you don't get paint where you don't want it.

[microsoftne]

have it airbrushed or take it to a body shop (after you have disassembled it) and have them put it in with a car they are repainting, they can then bake seal it and it will be beautiful.... (this is what vodoo basically does.)

[iOsiris]

Originally Posted by lgandg

Use one the new spray paints for plastic and top it with a coat of clear spray lacquer (otherwise the paint will rub off). I strongly suggest taking it apart and painting only the plastic parts so you don't get paint where you don't want it.

Are there certain brands to look for? Or are they all pretty much the same?

[Delvien]

http://www.notebookforums.com/forums...d.php?t=107849

Same concept, but for the laptop take it apart b4 you start anything

[Malia]

Osiris,

I wouldn't paint a laptop myself after what happened to my laptop. Long story short, Portable One was going to take apart my Fujitsu N6210 (because if I did it myself, that would void the warranty) and have a local body shop paint it. It was supposed to be a body shop that does a lot of nice custom body work on Harleys. You know, flames and stuff. One would think, they certainly know what they're doing. However, here's what they wrote to me...

I am not a paint expert, but what they are telling us the primer used for is not bonding to the treated mag/plastics well, they did 2 coats of primer and even added a powder coat to thicken the paint without causing it to run, but when we started putting it back together the edges started to scuff off, so that was not acceptable to me so I told them we were not paying for it.

So, it's quite a risk... (By the way, P1 is not charging me for it even though they obviously had to go to the body shop and back, etc, and they're getting me a new case so it'll still be better than it was originally.) This guide recommends houseofkolor.com for paints, if you really want to do it though...

Here's my suggestion: If you want an original look at no risk, get one of those removable stickers (just for the lid), like PolyGFX.com. Unfortunately, that site's been down for a while while they're upgrading their services. I say 'unfortunately' 'coz with PolyGFX, you can use your own design, plus they have/had many cool designs to choose from... There are other vendors that offer stickers that work the same way but offer girly patterns, btw, like dots and flowers and stuff.

If you're dead set on paint, there was a link in the news section for a company that can spray paint your design on the lid, but I'm not sure how well that can work. I think I'll try the sticker first when I get my laptop back, once PolyGFX is back up, and if I don't like it, figure out where to go from there...

Malia