painting a laptop

[scottatwittenberg]

i am going to paint my laptop.. a dell c400.. but i want to get opinions first before i screw it up and have to resand it and start over or something fun like that..

so.. here is what i am thinking..

sanding with 3 or so grits of sandpaper from about 160 - 600..
a few coats of primer.. sand again
a few coats of color coat.. sand if needed..
coats of clear coat.. polish..

but.. i don't necessarily want it to be glossy that might be more trouble than it is worth..

the case is part plastic, part metal.. what paint products will work on both equally well

it needs to be durable.. it can't scratch easily.. and if it does scratch, i can't have grey showing through. also, i don't want smooth shiny spots to appear on the palmrest for example..

also.. what are people's suggestions for painting on symbols for things like headphone, usb, ethernet, monitor.. etc.... are there any stamps that can be bought? and then i can stamp them on under the clearcoat?

 

[GothicWombat]

painting a labtop seems more work than its worth to me but if you insist you're going to haft to get two different types of paint for the plastic and metal parts because there is no paint for both, also make sure you pay attention when you're taking it apart so you know how it goes back together take pics along the way so you can refer back to them later. yes you do need to take your laptop apart if you're going to wetsand with 600grit paper, it'll say wet dry but you really wanna wetsand with very fine sandpaper.
as far as symbols go I hope you're good with masking tape and an x-acto knife, i've also heard of using petroleium jelly instead of masking tape, if you want to try to change the color of the symbols then the first coat of paint will be the color of the symbols and then mask them off then paint the rest of the case.

if you don't want a glossy finish then don't buy glossy paint. to help with scratching a clearcoat is a very good idea and the more coats of paint and clear the less likely a scratch will go all the way through.

 

[oneil]

My buddy painted his Inspiron 6000 with the same steps you suggested above. It ended up not sticking to the plastic, peeling at spots or reacting with the cover and warping the plastic (weird eh?).

Just make sure you dont rush any of the steps

 

[skunkmunkey]

I painted my asus laptop, i just sanded the plastic down a fair bit, used bondo on the plastic to give it a thin coat, sanded again and then primer over the top. that way you dont have to worry about the primer reacting with the plastic. Its been done for over an year now and still looks as good as when it was first done.

 

[oneil]

I painted my asus laptop, i just sanded the plastic down a fair bit, used bondo on the plastic to give it a thin coat, sanded again and then primer over the top. that way you dont have to worry about the primer reacting with the plastic. Its been done for over an year now and still looks as good as when it was first done.

Care to throw up some pics?