TB painting question

Hey!

First, nice forum you have here! I have taken PAGES of notes. Nothing like not having to reinvent the wheel, right?

I have an 18 ready for me to go pick up. First thing I need to do is paint it, because I am quite certain that the better it looks, the better it will run.

Anyway, for those of you hacking the 18's, are there any non-obvious ports or passthroughs that need masking tape?

Once I get it taped, exactly how do you paint magnesium alloy, anyway? My initial thought is that new rattlecan stuff designed for plastic but is supposed to adhere to just about anything.

For those of you that have painted theirs (I like that one striped job in their avatar), have you noticed a drop in rx sensitivity of your internal GPS, WWAN or wireless card?

Thanks in advance,

-Shawn

 

Welcome aboard Shawn! Having painted a couple I offer these words of advice (not to accepted as gospel, just some hints).

--Don't paint anything rubber, it just won't stick for long no matter how you prep

-- PRIME EVERYTHING! Sand and prime the cover with fine grit paper (careful of the dust! it is toxic and flammable).

-- Use QUALITY paint such as Krylon, it covers better and will last longer. Don't worry about interference unless you put on the paint an inch thick. They took the lead out (literally) years ago and the paint does not contain enough metallic material to make a difference

-- Take it apart as much as your experience/confidence/fear will allow, it makes for a more professional looking job, otherwise tape closely and trim where necessary

Remember, have fun! The good thing about paint is if you screw up (or just don't like the color) you can always do over.

Robert

 

To tell you the truth it is not adviceable to paint the unit in any color except the one coated on the toughbook. It is becoz it will loose the ability of the magnesium alloy to absorb heat (certain percentage) created when the sysytem is working but I do painted a few unit just for an experiment and fun.

If you still insist to paint the unit you must disassemble the unit depending on which area are you going to work on to.


ohlip

 

ohilip is right (of course) there are two toughbook colors... Silver and black. Panasonic used to paint their toughbooks black until they had heat related failures. They switched to silver. They still make some black ones (I actually have a factory painted black CF-29, the only one I've ever seen!) They still sell black Toughbooks by special order I believe.

My advice is to leave it as it is. I have seen some on ebay who take a spray can to Toughbooks and then call them custom. These same guys spraypaint all the rubber parts and then, in a few days of use, it starts looking worse than it ever did when it had a few scratches. Every scratch on a Toughbook is a badge of honor and in some cases would have probably destroyed any other laptop.

If you absolutely must.. I would spray the top cover ONLY. Panasonic uses a special primer to cover the magnesium which oxidizes very quickly! I tried to be cool once and strip all the primer off a cover. The magnesium can be buffed to a mirror finish actually... Much like aluminum. Then the next day it has a white powder all over it, especially where I touched or handled it. THAT is how fast it oxidizes! In relation to this... It can also burn like crazy! (As in Magnesium firestarter!) If you do sand... Sand lightly and not all the way through the finish... Just enough to scuff the surface.

If you sand through the magnesium PLEASE remember that the magnesium dust, chips, shavings, etc will ignite with the least spark! (As in magnesium firestarter!) I was reminded of this the hard way. I have modified A LOT of Toughbooks and I save the magnesium shavings in an airtight container for use as emergency firestarter. (You never know) I kept a small open container on the end of my workbench to catch shavings so I could transfer them to the container. Well... Last summer I needed to sharpen my lawnmower blade... I used my bench grinder and that shot sparks into the container that had a little bit of the magnesium shavings still in it. The container burst into flames immediately. Not my finest hour. It was a very small container and like I said... It didn't have much magnesium in it... But you see my point. There are things about the Toughbook that a lot of people don't even think about when they paint, modify, change, things around.

 

You were saying that the primer oxidizes very quickly... Well I would love to have a mirror finish toughbook but couldn't you use an anti-oxidant coating. Maybe something for detailing chrome? Or some clear anti-rust clear coat? I have a friend who works in a auto body shop, do you think they could achieve the mirror finish and prevent oxidation? This seems like a really cool project! ^.^

 

The primer doesn't oxidize quickly... The magnesium does. You may be able to find a clearcoat that sticks.... But what do you do when it scratches?

The simple fact is... No matter how much you pay, no matter how long you take... You will never be able to duplicate or paint the Toughbook better than Panasonic does. You may make it look cool and it may work for as long as you own it but it won't last as long as the original finish unless you take it to have it professionally done.

I usually will only paint a toughbook if requested to do so for a custom job and then I have the autobody shop spray on top of the existing coating after I sand it very carefully with 600 then 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Then I put on custom logos, etc. I did try my hand at a digital camo paint job once... It looked barfy... But someone on ebay loved it!

The problem is with the flat paints is that they absorb moisture. If the paint is not properly applied it may hasten the oxidation. Granted... This may take years to take place but still...

The painted ones on ebay are done with a spraycan and will only last as long as you don't touch it. You can tell they don't even remove the logo prior to painting. Most have a little overspray on the screen...

<stepping down from soapbox>

 

well....

I certainly appreciate all the input. My problem is that my culture abhors shiny s*&t. Short of the 100 mile an hour tape route, I had hopes I could just ranger green that lid or something.

I hadn't considered the heat issue either; from the other rugged notebooks we've had, I didn't think it would be an issue.

Thanks again..... (returns to lurking)

-Shawn

 

I wonder how ceramic header paint would do on the lid of a toughbook? Put on 9-10 very light coats of it and bake it in the oven. Another idea would be ceramic Dura-Coat. It's used on high end weapons with good luck. Gun barrels (especially full autos) get very hot and finishes need to stay on without issues. A ceramic paint would help to absorb the heat given off...I wouldn't be surprised if they Toughbook doesn't have a type of ceramic coating to seal in the metal case.
If you're interested in doing this type of finish, you would need to completely take off the screen and strip it down.

 

This thread got me thinking- I would love to chrome plate the lid of a 29 or 30. That would be slick! Maybe I'll price it out.

 

Plating might be an idea... Talking about pimping it out....

"Yeah... I got a pearl handled, chrome plated Toughbook... Whatchu got?"

 

Only if your front teeth are also plated in gold with inset diamonds to give some extra bling...

 

you should go all the way, and pimp it with one giant spinner with a 'P' in the middle!

-Shawn

 

I'll bet if you paint it gold and put some glue on fake gems, someone will bid on it on ebay...

 

How about some glitters on it. LOL


ohlip

 

DAMMIT PEOPLE! NO KABITZING!

*slumps away to go back to the drawing board*

hmmmm maybe some tricked out LED action along the lines??!!

 

Aluminium similarly oxidises very quickly in the presence of even the smallest amount of air, but I don't think aluminium will burn like magnesium can.

I've looked at those yellow, red, blue, green, etc. painted TB's on Ebay (even grabbed a lot of the pics for the Rugged Computing group on Flickr) but I think the standard unpainted TB is going to be better in the long run as an paint coating will suffer damage from impacts, abrasion, etc. and that detracts from the purpose of painting in the first place. Besides, painting the magnesium casing does nothing to protect the metal as unlike steel it doesn' rust.

Craig.

 

After reading all this I wonder about the paint job on my CF-28. I bought it on eBay as a shell and it came with the painted lid and also has the black carry handle and lid latch.

 

Mark, as long as YOU are happy with the colors on your TB, that's all that matters.

I'm actually going to price out this week how much the local chrome shop will charge to do the lid of my 29. I think that would be slick! I've never seen that done before. If it's not outrageous, maybe I'll do all the silver to chrome, minus the palmrest. That's plastic, I replaced one once.

 

I guess it depends how well it was painted. There are ways to paint magnesium so it lasts and lives up to the 'tough' in 'toughbook', though I recall that the Panasonic reason for not doing it was due to heat transferance being reduced so systems ran hotter.

If you're in a cold climate that's probably quite ok though!

I think the painted CF28's, etc. look pretty good and would take one if I was offered it, but I don't think I'd paint up a raw one as the rawness gives it character. Gasp that's sounding all psychological.

Craig.

 

I feel kinda odd talking about this, but when I was in Gravitar's basement workshop, he showed me some CF-28 cases that were all black from Panasonic. They were a special order (Kind of like SBC has special order yellow), but they were really neat. It was more matte paint, but it looked like it belonged there.

If I was to ever paint mine, it would be matte black, or olive drab. I would probably use gun paint, or ship it to a company that does our coatings at work.

I rarely, if ever use mine in the hot heat or direct sunlight, because I'm not a fan of either of those myself.

 

As far as chrome plating a Toughbook, I wouldn't recommend it. Waaaay back when I used to dabble in two wheeled insanity, we used to brush blast all the magnesium cases on the bikes and paint them flat black. We did this because I once had a chance to talk to the guys who built the Honda factory GP machines and they had tested different finishes to determine the best way to get rid of heat. It seems that if you mirror polish a surface and plate it there is a layer of molecules on the back side of the plating that's just as shiny as the layer on the front. This reflects heat back into the engine and according to the Japanese, caused the engines to run significantly hotter, not a good idea for motorcycle engines or for computers for that matter. I do know that the CF-30, sitting in the back of the jeep, with the LCD closed and running the remote monitor, gets pretty hot over the course of the day. This in ambient temperatures of 70-75 degrees with the jeep moving. When I say pretty hot I mean like an overheated power supply hot. I don't think its a good idea to do anything to restrict the machine's ability to shed heat. The issue with dark paint jobs of course is that you are encouraging the computer to absorb heat if it is sitting in direct sunlight.
CAP

 

Hey Cap, that's right! I worked in a speed (as relates to internal combustion powered automobiles) shop eons ago, and the same question came up several times "can't you chrome plate my block so it matches my rims, steering wheel, and belt buckle?" Think about a retro toaster oven, they weren't chrome because it was fast, they were chrome because it helped to hold the heat in and toast the bread. Flat black was our color of choice, that and sometimes chevy orange. Never, but, never Ford blue......
In the real world, if you have your chrome plated TB mounted in your cruiser and keep the A/C vent trained on the case, you should have no problems (aside from the perps getting jealous!)
BTW, do they make a CLUB for the TB?

I'll hang up now and get my response on the air.......