Painting a Laptop?

E

enelson125

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
485
Right now I own an ASUS Z71V laptop. It's a fantastic laptop, but its gray on gray paint job leaves a lot to be desired in the style area. I've read the few how-to's I've found by googling, but I wanted to get some input from here.

The laptop casing is plastic, so I know I will need to start with a plastic primer. I've found plastic primers by Krylon and Rustoleum. I want to do a nice paintjob with this so don't bother recommending the Krylon Fusion line, plus the color selection for that line is very limited. I'm not sure about what color scheme I would like to do. One possible idea is to do a bronze-yellow for the base and have two black racing stripes, my inspiration coming from the leaked pics of the 07/08 Camaro being used in The Transformers movie. I am open to other ideas as well, cameleon paints also look like a posibility.

I was just curious to where would be a good place to pickup these paints? I don't want to spend a ton of money, so taking the laptop chassis to an automotive painter isn't something I'd like to do. Also if anyone knows of a really good how-to that I may not have seen can you please link me to that?

Thanks!
 
Qtip42 said:
Why again are you priming a surface that doesn't need it?
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Why wouldn't I need to prime it? I know the Krylon Fusion paints don't need primer because they bond with plastic or something, but I'm not using those cheap paints. Every other laptop paint job I've seen uses primer.
 
I don't recommend painting the entire laptop because the paint will wear in certain areas, such as the wrist rest at the bottom of the keyboard. Painting the display casing would be better, IMO. If you're okay with that, then you might consider skipping paint altogether and just do a vinyl wrap. The color selection is excellent, it's fairly easy to do, you don't have to worry about drips/spatters/runs, and it's reversible should you get tired of it or want to sell the laptop. If you insist on painting it, I suggest Duplicolor paints, which are available at Wal-Mart and most auto part stores.
 
OKANG said:
I don't recommend painting the entire laptop because the paint will wear in certain areas, such as the wrist rest at the bottom of the keyboard. Painting the display casing would be better, IMO. If you're okay with that, then you might consider skipping paint altogether and just do a vinyl wrap. The color selection is excellent, it's fairly easy to do, you don't have to worry about drips/spatters/runs, and it's reversible should you get tired of it or want to sell the laptop. If you insist on painting it, I suggest Duplicolor paints, which are available at Wal-Mart and most auto part stores.
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Do you have some links to vinyl wrap? I'd like to take a look.
 
It's the same kind of vinyl they use for signs and some automotive graphics. To wrap it, you use a heat gun. You'll have to google if you want instructions.
 
enelson125 said:
Why wouldn't I need to prime it? I know the Krylon Fusion paints don't need primer because they bond with plastic or something, but I'm not using those cheap paints. Every other laptop paint job I've seen uses primer.
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If the laptop is textured and you're trying to drown out the texture I understand using the primer. Otherwise you should be able to prepsol it (removing all the wax and grease) then scuff it......then prepsol one more time or tack cloth it. Should be enugh for the basecoat to stick fine.
 
Qtip42 said:
If the laptop is textured and you're trying to drown out the texture I understand using the primer. Otherwise you should be able to prepsol it (removing all the wax and grease) then scuff it......then prepsol one more time or tack cloth it. Should be enugh for the basecoat to stick fine.
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The chassis is not textured actually. What is prepsol? I'm not very experienced with painting things.
 
Here's a link to the Camaro I might try to base the paint job off of, Link

I guess it's the 2008/2009 concept, not 07/08 like I originally wrote.
 
enelson125 said:
The chassis is not textured actually. What is prepsol? I'm not very experienced with painting things.
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Prepsol = wax and grease remover

It cleans the surface thoroughly so your paint won't react and totally screw everything up.
 
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