Painting a laptop

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

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.)

 

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

 

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

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

 

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...

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

 

take a look at these links http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2552 / http://www.laptopdesignusa.com/

 

i have a toshiba satellite m60, and i hate the dull grey colour of the lid. is there any way i can take the lid off??

 

Spiike is amazing. Check out some of his mods here.

Here is a direct link to the painting tutorial.

Example picture:

Pic from spiike.shadowdragon.net

 

yeah, that's a good tutorial, but note that he mentions how the corners chip because of the paint being on top of the plastic as opposed to molded into the plastic which is what you get with factory schemes

 

Well I decided to just add some ferrari stickers to my silver wristpads and possibly order some of those colored ones (yellow,blue, etc) next time I'll order from someone like falcon nw perhaps

 

SIGH i HATE the whole "buy colored palmrest" thing. i actually prefer the black and silver thing of mine. but i had some left over epoxy from a salt water tank experiment and used the leftover epoxy to stick 'thin' black leather to my plain old silver palm rests.

 

Why not take the palm rest peices out and recycle them by custom painting only them?

 

i rember reading a arcticle in one of my d.i.y mags and they were advertising plastic powder coating. i will look for the arcticle in a while. it sounded good they say they can do lawn chairs plastic moulding/trim ect im dure they could do a laptop case too it may be a bit pricy but if you want it done rite and to last then this would be the best way to do it. i find that plastic is very very hard to get a nice long lasting finish on even if you use the speacialty paints and primers and seal it with a clear coat

 

ok here is a link to the arcticle and company's website i feel this would be the best way to go if you want a quality finish http://www.pfonline.com/articles/010501.html

http://www.asf-powder.com/main.html

 

I love the idea of painting your notebook, but it seems like somthing that would be hard to pull off without voiding warranty, or messing the plastic up, so on...

i especialy like the idea of using stickers, sense stickers are so easy to make with a good printer i might just use custome decals rather than paint anything at all...

i've got an painter friend who would love to go to town on my notebook when i finaly get it...though i hadn't thought of decals...guess i'll have to tell her to paint my car instead XD(she wanted to do that any ways lol)