Painting my new Lenovo R61i

I love my lappy but I have taken notice to the silver/grey LCD covers on new 3000 series lenovos. I've decided to go ahead an paint mine. I am going to use krylon "textured" spray as a base coat and cover it with krylon satin or semi flat silver/gray paint. I'm thinking 4-5 light coats of gray should do the trick. I've already disassembled the cover and sanded it with 400 grit paper. I am heading out to buy the rest of the supplies right now. I'll give updates as the project progresses. I'd love to hear your feedback!

 

Take pictures along the process!

I'm very curious to see how a modded ThinkPad will turn out.

Good luck.

 

Good luck! I want to do this with my HP, but there's already a radiance design on it.

Also I'm scared to ruin it. :X

 

Yeah, we need lots of pics.

 

Well, I've started painting. The first pic was taken after 3 coats of primer (with 400 grit sanding in-between). The second was right after the first coat coat of finish krylon "hammered" aluminum went on. I will have many more pics as I go on, I was too excited to snap more earlier, but who wants to see primer anyway?





Stay tuned!

 

Lookin' good so far!

 

Well, I have some HORRIBLE news. I finished my final clear coat. To finish it off I set it in the warm oven for the final time. The oven had be set to 200 F then shut off for 1/2 an hour to cool. I basically just wanted a warmish environment for the thing to cure. The oven was left open while the cover sat in it for 4 minutes. I came back to find this:



I have no idea how the thing warped so fast. The oven is maybe 90 degrees and cooling. i am devistated right now. Does anyone know where I can get another cover shipped to me quick?

 

Sorry to hear this... but you should never, never put any computer parts like that in a oven. I use heat lamps, (4' from object) to speed up the curing process. Another tip, 600 grit sandpaper is not nearly enough, you should finish with 2,000 grit. See my paint-job in my sig.

 

I'm very sorry to hear this too.

Ebay would be the fastest way to get a spare.

A stupid suggestion, but would softening it again in the oven and gently pushing it back into shape work?

Jack53: he did say he wanted a textured finish, perhaps thats why he didn't use finer grit sandpaper?

 

I realize the oven is not the correct "tool" but, it was barely above room temperature at the time maybe 90-100 degrees tops. I guess it was still too warm for the plastic though. I found a replacement from sparepartswarehouse.com for ~$40 shipped next day. Has anyone ordered from them before?

EDIT: about the finish, it is supposed to be textured a bit. Krylon calls it "hammered." I really liked the look of it, before I destroyed it. :-(

 

Wow man that sucks I was looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

dam sorry to hear that hope you get a replacement case.

 

I feel like an idiot today. I am working on ordering a replacement or 2 (just in case I forget blowtorches get really hot too. ) Here are a couple of pics i snapped before I started baking. I'm not so mad that I have to order new parts, but I'm mad because the finish came out just how I wanted it. I will definitely be tempted to paint again. Maybe down the line sometime.





I really like the "hammered" finish from the paint. The krylon was a joy to work with too. I highly recommend Fusion paints.

 

Thats a really cool texture!
Sucks you ruined the original piece, but at least it looks like it wasn't hard to get a replacement.

 

I got my new lid today @ 10AM. I ordered it from sparepartswarehouse.com at 2PM yesterday. Talk about fast shipping! I highly recommend them if anybody needs repair parts. I am thinking of ordering another lid soon to have customized. For now my lenovo is happy to not be topless.

 

Bummer about the original. The new piece looks awesome though. Can't wait to see it on the notebook.

 

It looks (looked) really nice! I hope the replacement works out as well.

 

It looks good, but i would use some filler to fill the hole where the IBM logo goes.

 

Actually, I ordered up some "classic" IBM stickers to go in the holes. I'm not sure how I want to do the new cover yet. I'll try and keep you guys posted as the project moves forward. It may take a while though, it is tough to get these kinds of things done while I'm at school. We'll see though.

 

If you do try and do it again, go to a hardware store and purchase some heat lamps, you can get them at a pet store as well however pets stores cost more for basically the same lamp. they are just a metal shroud with a fixture inside of them and they have a clamp on the outside.

cost at a hardware store is usually around 3 to 5 bucks, and then you should get a 100 watt lite bulb. this is what i use when painting my model cars and i use two of them with 100 watt light bulbs and i have them approximately 4 or 5 feet above the model and i usually check it every hour per coat with the heat lamps on it it usually only takes about an 1 hour 45 minutes to do the body. so i dunno how long it would take for a lid but i know that i have been doing it this way since i was a kid and never had any problems.

hope this helps!

 

Thats a great idea, I will definitely keep that in mind. I believe I actually have a lamp too. My used to use it out in his shop, I'll have to go look for it. Thanks!

 

foo_ball76,

I am in the process of completing a very high end paint job on my Voodoo laptop.
Every step along the way, it air dried.
Do not use an oven, or a heat lamp.
Jut let the paint dry naturally.
A heat lamp causes the paint and chassis to warp because of unequal heating.
You never want to apply heat to the plastics which your laptop are made of, or else you get a globular laptop.

Please do not use a heat lamp, just let it air dry, and everything will come out fine.

K-TRON

 

I respectfully disagree. If you use a heat lamp properly, it works great. When I used mine, it was 4 feet above the lid. I've done it several times and it works for me. Just use common sense.
Your method works too... just takes longer. I feel heat lamps give you controlled temps and speeds up your paint times. I don't like waiting a week to use the notebook.
I used heat lamps on the last two jobs.
http://1-4u-computer-graphics.com/notebookpaint.htm

 

Yeah, well I want a performance high quality paint job. I dont mind waiting too much.
It began paint the second week in January, and guess what it is still being painted.
A paint job done right, has much less imperfections than one done wrong.
Good things take time

K-TRON