Custom Papaya Orange W7

Below is a composite of some shots of a custom W7 I did for a customer I met Waterfest this year. Basically, it was done in a PPG Papaya Orange and Charcoal Metalic and finished in a 5% gloss clear (basically flat). This was was done to match the customers car (Audi TT in papaya orange with charcoal wheels and trim), but I think the color itself compliments the W7 as is regardless. Two things bother me about the W7's coloring to begin with, starting with the silver camera on the top which only matches the trim, but helps the camera stick out. The second is the charcoal on the bottom is slightly different than that of the rest of the system and to me as a designer - isn't perfect. I guess you could look at the pictures below, but two things that really don't stand out in these pictures is how the flat clearcoat really makes this stand out. Gloss is tacky on a notebook and flat makes it look factory. To show off the magnesium lid a little, the area where the logo is was polished before it was covered with the logo and primed.... so what you see in the logo is actually the bare metal of the lid, polished to mirror finish. To compliment that, the pinstripe between the orange and charcoal was also polished and left without paint.

This was not an exercise in "pimping the notebook", as it was done tastefully... as much as it could with such a standout color anyway. I do something different with every new model and try to make something that really works..... it's not painted for the sake of being painted. This is a result of a little more than a dozen steps and nearly 25 man hours and just about 10 days from start to being hard enough to reinstall the screen and reattach to the notebook. We offer services like these on a case by case basis, but to give you an idea, between the labor and materials, that lid added at least 40-45% to the cost of the system...

Basically any sort of design or logo you could create, we could work into something like this....... nothing I've ever done came out remotely the same and between colors and finishes and materials.... there's a lot of room to be creative.

For the sake of comparison, here's a link to some papaya orange TT's: http://www.fourtitude.com/gallery/g...-TT Roadster/TT (a4)/3.2 Coupe - EU/Exterior#

 

Weird looking really, heh

But that's one hell of a TT coupe!

 

yeah strange but beauty.
the crazy look of the w7

 

it most def. stands out thats for sure.

 

that seems like alot of work for a paintjob. did you ever think of offering paint jobs for laptops as an option. im sure your cost would go down the more order you got and your refine the process.

 

Wow! This dude better not work on his laptop while in or near the car, with other people watching, or they'll think he's crazy! I match things to other things much more than the average person, but this I think is overkill. It's like having baggy pants, jacket, and hat made of the same fabric. It's hard to describe, you just have to see it for yourself - and you'll see that you are not the only person trying to suppress their laughter.

Apart from the car, the color itself is nice and rare. I have only one accessory in that color! And from the pictures, it looks like it came like that from the factory. I'd love to see it in person... Great worksmanship!

Malia

 

papaya orange mmm
very nicely done to match car

 

WHOA! That unit would cause traffic and lots of double-takes.

The workmanship looks A-1. I'd like mine in metallic red.

 

Wow! That's really nice!

 

Real nice finish!

 

I'm thinking of a color pallet of pastels really... You can't tell from the photo all that much, but the orange with a flat clear is very pastely.... sort of like the below:



Logos and designs can be silkscreened, stenciled (as I did this one), engraved... a bunch of different things... it could just be a straight color and nothing else. Doing multiple ones at a time obviously goes to save some labor (prep and cleanup are a pain in the butt), however unless we get into doing 100's at a time, it's not going to bring the cost down that much because all that really is saved is the prep and cleanup, and there's still a lot of individual work to each piece. This is why I don't so much hate the Lambo Vx1 for it being a grand more than the V6j... Other than a better lcd warranty and slightly overclocked graphics card...... $700-800 is just the paintjob of the lid. Now, Lambo did them and that's part of the experience of buying it I guess...... they're all hand done in many, many steps I have done this one..... and they were able to bring the cost down to some $700-800 and I believe they did 3,000 of them... If Asus painted them they wouldn't look nearly as good and although for a laptop, Asus has very nice finishes.... they don't compare to what would go into something like this.

I may be interested in just making and selling lids on a per order basis and customers could then install them on their own laptops.... but as good as that sounds, I know how much work is involved and wouldn't want people to get upset when they screwed up the finish on a lid that cost a ton of money......

 

Hmmmm, the color isn't to my liking, but the workmanship looks great. Great job Justin

 

... it's an aquired taste, I can certainly say that... but my brother has a CJ-5 he built with a custom creamsicle orange paintjob which honestly mirrors this color quite a bit.... it grows on you, as long as there isn't too much of it and there are complimentary colors that put it in it's place...

... the hardest part of doing a W7 lid as I did is actually two fold.... first and foremost, anyone who has a W7 knows that Asus' logo is embossed and then there is raised lettering that is glued on. Basically, the only way to remove that is by sandblasting it..... and then the hole needs to be filled with bondo. Finally, it would have been easier to lay down the orange and then lay down a negative of our logo and paint it charcoal to match the top and bottom...... then clear coat. Inteast, polishing up of the metal and covering that and then laying down the orange is actually a lot more difficult. See... paint doesn't really like to stick to a highly polished finish.... Primers and etchs just don't cut it either... so I needed to cover the polished area with the logo in a thick vinyl and then sandblast around it one last time..... trying hard not to peal up the vinyl and yet rough up the surrounding surface.

... I'd say to do this one honestly took longer than anything ever has in the past... between actually having to sandblast the original paint off and then polishing and all the steps in between... It hardly seems worth it.... but if you have the money and really want some personalized... I guess you'll get what you want. The truth is, I loath spraying when I finish a job and need to clear up the same as if I just did a full sedan or a single notebook the same amount....

The forum doesn't turn up all that many orders, but perhaps a group buy could get the costs on something like that down.... In fact, on a seperate issue and speaking of group buys..... I don't think the forum can really support it, but I've come up with a pricing plan for 15-30 purchases in a group buy type of effort. I don't know who would be interested in this, but it takes a little bit of time to get everyone involved and get their money in to get the discount.... but it works in many other forums for many different kinds of products.....

 

Hey Justin, that is a great paint job. But, I would figure if someone could have done the interior panels/ borders the same color it would look even nicer. But, like you said, its sounds like a pain to do. Good job though. I wonder anyone want to try to photoshop it with the interior panels painted? Just want to see what it looks like.

 

Justin, that Papaya color on the W7 is nice indeed. I like the different colors. I'd probably color mine dark forest green and if the finish could be metallic like then that would be awesome. Meanwhile, I'm still extremely satisfied with my W3J .

 

... like I said... with orange, that would have been too much.... I actually did some quick PS work to show the guy and he agreed. I've done other systems in full color and I always felt they looked tacky. The problem is making sure the inside is compatible with the outside. In this case we wanted to go with a charcoal on the bottom and the camera piece and that matches the interior exactly...... obviously orange goes with black and charcoal, so it works....... it would also actually go with just about all of the color pallet that I was considering above. The problem lies when the entire thing needs to be done to make it all work. There's no saying that it would all have to be orange, but if say this chassis was normally all silver, then doing the inside in charcoal, although more time consuming, would be better than leaving it silver, if silver just didn't work. I've done an S5 in imola yellow and black before and I just felt it was a little much. For some though, it might be perfect One nice thing about leaving the inside a dark color is that there are no distractions when using the system...... but to each their own.

 

Doc, that's great to hear....... while you mention it, I have played around with anodizing..... The cool thing about the W3 (and W1/W2 for that matter) is the brushed aluminum lid..... Anodizing is an electroplating process which could change the color of the base aluminum which is aluminum in color and make is shade of just about anything. It's friggen hard, but if you can manage to get the anodizing off without sanding out the brushing, then you can reanodize it in another color........ It's great in theory and I have been playing around with it, but it's a pain. I got one done and I thought the color wasn't just right, so I tried to sandblast it and that's a no no when it comes to a thin metal lid........ it twisted and warped all to hell and took the brushing right out. It's not difficult to add the brushing again, but I just gave up on that project because flattening out the lid again is impossible..... but if it can be done, it's a LOT quicker than the whole painting process and the finish is dare I say... better... only because it'll never come off. Imagin your black W3 lid in a shade of green as you were thinking, but still being able to see the brushed aluminum.... hot.

 

Speaking of inside colors... I think it would be really, really, really awesome to have a laptop with blue insides. A smaller laptop, nothing bigger than 14", or it would get too much. And the shade of blue, kind of like baby blue but probably darker. I can just imagine typing on blue keys... It would work perfectly with the accent color and the bulk of the lid in black. For a lighter combination, though, it would have to have 2 accent colors (since you can't see white type on light/med blue background), and the "other" accent color would be red. I don't know where I'm going with this... But yeah, it's too much if the inside and the outside are the same color (and by color I mean real color, not white or black, or silver for that matter).

Malia

 

Justin great work. I am more and more surprised how handy you are. from working on your card to doing fiberglass molding for your system to this. your a handy person. how do you find time to play around with all this stuff and run a company.

 

Well see.... you don't want to paint the keyboard..... trust me. I haven't found a good way to silkscreen the keyboards in the first place, but they're impossible to mask off and trying to take off the keys and then tape them down to a surface..... more of a paint... then trying to get the right keys back in the right spots after you paint over the letters....... ahhh... it frustrates me to even think about it.... You could paint the backside, but it really doesn't show through that well.... tried it...


Thanks Steve.... I do a lot of things to free my mind... My family has a construction and furiture business, so I grew up around that..... and as a very serious hobby, they basically have a full auto shop in terms of mechanics and bodywork go, just to work on our cars.... so you pick up a lot when you're around that your entire life and when you have all the tools in the world to do what ever you may want... it certainly helps.

 

Yeah, I can only imagine; I was thinking of it being molded into the plastic. Maybe one day when notebooks are cheaper = more popular than they are now, there will rise a company that makes wacky stuff like blue keyboards. I don't know, I just have this mental image of a blue keyboard in my head, it's hard to describe.

I wonder how it would look if the paint was glow-in-the-dark! Or blacklight sensitive! Can't say I'd want it for myself, but I'd definitely want to see it, like in a museum of some sort.

That's so awesome! I remember when I was a little girl, like 8 or 10, I wanted to be a construction worker because my grandfather was building our summerhouse from scratch, and I liked helping him out. Trying to use a lathe, and then getting all the wood shavings and making a big fire. It was awesome! But then we moved and it was all gone. But it was fun while it lasted...

Malia

 

You know... if I could get out laser cutter programed to cut the key icons into the keys...... then we just may have a way to do what you're saying.... it's it's embossed a bit it'll stand out...

 

Backlight keyboard, I'd kill for one of those on my laptop...

 

Would that be awesome or would that be awesome!

 

there you go justin. start a company that makes backlit keyboards for various laptops. i bet you would make a fortune.

 

yes, aftermarket backlit keys!!!!!!

 

I put some small led's on an M6 we had reviewed oh.... it's gotta be 3 years ago now... what a B%$@*.... It wasn't so much the drilling out and wiring up of the leds as much as it was just dealing with the keyboard..... very difficult.

 

Everything that makes good money is hard... At first, do it manual, then you'll buy better tools and stuff and it'll go by much faster and you can hire people to do it for you, while you just sell them..
I'm sure this would be a very hot item and you could price it in the 80-100$ range easily.. I mean look at those logitech keyboards with LED's.. Some are already over 100$ and they dont have anything fancy about them (sure the mini LCD display one is cool).. but most are just plain keyboards with backlit lcds.

 

... Nooooo... I'm talking about the need to start with the basic keyboard and almost every Asus notebook has a different keyboard.... very limiting... this isn't like a usb deal that works with every notebook...... Then you have the power requirements and since there isn't an easy way to hook it up, it would all need to be custom done on a per installation basis...... $100 or not.... the labor to do the install, plus the shipping costs for the notebook on top of physically making the pieces make it totally unpractical. If it were a usb desktop type of issue, that would be cake..... unless someone wants to pay $200-300 for everything, including being unable to use their system for the time it's in the shop.... it doesn't work out... and anyone willing to pay that for a custom backlit keyboard... I've got a bridge I'll sell you.

 

Not sure how the stuff is manufactured. but what about custom tritium inserts in the keyboard. would work pretty good in the night. cheaper. and you might be able to get custom made vials.

 

Steve,

I'm a step ahead you.... It's a good idea, but it doesn't work as well as you may think... and they're actually expensive in their own right (and obviously I'm sure you know the fade after a year and are basically no good after a year and half).... but I took some pieces off a bow site and you'd need to use a LOT to even get an effect.....

 

i have several high end tritium watches. i have not noticed any fade yet and one is 5 years old. their life span is supposed to be 10 years i believe. but im sure with everything it depends on the quality you buy. but you are right that they arent all that bright.

 

Yeah, I have a few tritium scopes and they suggest they be swapped every year or so...... but those are super bright.. .I don't know.... It's still an idea and it's obviously welcomed...

 

You had a good idea there. I also do own a few flashlights with tritium vial inserts in them. Green is very bright for locating the flashlight in the dark but not enough to light up an area. I also have some small tritium vials on hand so I proceeded to see where I could place them. Not many locations.

Half life is supposed to be 12 years so diming is not an issue I think.

One last thing...importing tritium is a risky business because it's the stuff that can be used to make A bombs.

Cheers!

 

um you cannot make A bombs from a low yield radioactive source like tritum vials. the radiation is so harmless a piece of paper or glass would block the particles. even uranium isnt good enough. you could need highly enriched kind.

 

haha.. now we're really getting into it.....

 

You'd be surprised to see how quickly these things get pulled from ebay auctions and how fast your paypal account gets flagged. Do not put tritium vial or equivalent..they have keyword scanners in place. I agree with you, they are harmless but not what the government thinks!

 

Do you have any other photos of custom painted laptops?

 

Unfortunately I never seem to get the chance to photograph most of what I do for customers because they're all sealed up until they're hard enough to ship or get picked up and there never seems to be enough time. I always try to request the customer take some afterwards and when they do, the pictures always suck.

Here is the base to a custom S5n w/ an M5a palmrest and keyboard that was a prototype for an Asus / Livestrong campain which we eventually lost to HP and their crappy ass notebooks. That sucked because a certain person was sponsered by AMD, so the notebook needed to be AMD based obviously, and although I also did one based on an Asus AMD model, I felt something thin, light and powerful represented the cause more.... Asus just didn't see a way to convert the S5's to AMD......



Below is a very minimalistic, but overall one of the classiest things I've ever done. I've gotten to know Chip Foose through research I did in architecture school and obviously TLC's "Rides" and "Overhaulin'"... Some of his friends are very good customers of ours and out of the blue I get a call from Chip on my cell.... after hanging up on him because I thought it was a sick a joke, I found out he needed a system to keep up with email when working and on the road. He didn't want a specialized system, just a bone stock pearl W5f, but I decided to give it that personal touch for him..... I engraved his logo in a respectable scale and then filled it with a silver metalic to match the camera and trim. A month later his truck got broken into and someone stole the laptop..... so I made another. Although I'm still waiting for the prototypes to be finished, Chip is personally designing and machining one-off wheels for my S4...... the first German car to be fitted with Foose wheels and the only European car besides Adam Carolla's Aston Martin.... and all that for a little personalization that impressed him. From what I've heard, he gets quite a bit of comments about it..... and this is Chip Foose... three time winner of the Riddler... and people are noticing his notebook.





Other than that, I know I've got a few more, but there are a ton that I never got shots of...

 

When I saw the top picture I thought it was some kind of trick 3D paint job on the cover of the notebook

 

man you are so fortunate to meet him. im jealous.

 

I did a notebook up for another guy who's done our business a lot of good.... I don't know if anyone remembers Leo Laporte from the TechTV days on "The Screen Savers" and "Call for Help", but when G4 screwed up a good thing and got rid of the screen savers and all that was good on TechTV, Leo went to Canada and continued C4H up there...... He's an Apple guy but needed a windows based machine to compliment his 15" powerbook.... I really, really need to find the dvd with the tivo'd episode of him using it on the air.... it was really hard to see and it was a rush job, but for those familiar with the old W1n's lid, which is anodized brushed aluminum, I laser etched the call for help logo onto it just below the asus logo...... with all of the lights on a production stage like a tv show, you couldn't much, except for one time and I've got to find it....... He did a great review of an S5 many years back for me and one of the main "apple" guys in north america, to get him cozy with a pc was an honor.....

About Chip and that notebook...... as simple as that may seem to be, he picked up on the depth right away and the color matching.... With a guy like that where perfect just isn't good enough and with a painter like Charlie and a machinist like Mike.... I knew even something simple like this was going to get critized... To date I think we have more customers referred from him in just the last 8-9 months than any other single person in the last six years..... and I'm dying for my wheels. Project PROPortable which is my S4 is going to SEMA at the end of October and getting those wheels is going to really set it apart...