Dell 600m Custom Paint: Imperial Orange

as i got my new dell 1720, i decided to hack my beloved 600m.


i chose the color "Imperial Orange" of the Nissan 2007 color catalogue, and the Mitsubishi 2007 "Cool Silver" for the blue trims and mouse buttons. here goes:



2005 Color catalogue:











Palmrest sanded down:













LCD cover being sanded down by my lovely car paint pro:













Rest of parts sanded down (except for blue trims, they dont need to):











Got myself 200g's of "Metalic Imperial Orange":











Ahhhh it shines in the sun!!!!!













First, we started with the parts that needed to be painted silver, and here is the first coat of silver:











Painting the trim piece, notice that i defently wanted it to be 2 colors, my painter was suggesting for me to paint it all silver but i was like dude the hinges part will be silver and wont blend in with the LCD bezel color and it wont look nice at all....











Now about this Dell badge... its the cheapest stuff ive ever seen in my life, when i was trying to take it off i didnt know it was SO fragile that it bent and stuff.... so i fixed it as far as possible....

i also painted the badge since it was kinda scratched and i needed a unified color for the whole laptop.








back to the buttons and touchpad trim, heres the first coat of gloss after 3 coats of metalic silver um um i mean "Cool Silver":











mean while...............




back at the crib:



in the process of disassembly, i had layed out every part on the bed and put the screws related to the part beside to part... just so i dont get confused putting 1000 screws back together










i took the touchpad assembly out of the palmrest, and i dont know i just got this idea to clean the touchpad with aceton, when the matte finish started peeling.... so i started rubbing more and more and i noticed theres a very smooth and glossy layer under the matte finish, so i scrubbed the matt finish off completely untill i had a very shiny smooth surface... but i was doubting if will still work. Untill i plugged it in (youll see below) and it actually worked smoother than before!!!!!!!! it became much more sensitive too.













here i was soooo bored and i need to access a file on the HD so im like heck, let me practice assembling the laptop again, so i assemble everything back and i mount the screen, and voila, bootin up at a cool temperature of 31c (since everything is exposed)











alright enough scattered parts........





and nowwwwwwwwwwwwwww *Drums Rolllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*







Presto-change-o!!











Surface was a bit sumdgy and im too lazy to wipe it, metalic finish is amazing.








sideshot *couldnt paint CD drive*










i hope this pic brings out the true color of the imperial orange, because pics do not do justice on the beauty of this finish:











the silver is so nice too











as a whole











finally on my desk, bootin up







before :





_______________________________________


wires coming out of the laptop are wires soldered to the USB pins to connect a USB BT dongle, if any of you remember the dell truemobile 350 bluetooth had issues with staying connected to motherboard, i will put the dongle inside the screen bezel there is a perfect fit in there, wires will be tucked in accordingly.



so people thats my project. if you have any questions/suggestions feel free to post.

 

It looks really nice, I have done a similar mod to my laptop. Your choice of colors is really nice, its a shame that the dell cover piece bent so easily. It looks great other wise.
You can probably get a cheap dell cover from ebay, and then use a dremel to cut the dell piece out and then remove it without bending it.

I hope your painter applied 3 or more coats of clear, cause you will need the protection.

Its a very nice project, what did you pay for it, I can imagine at least $300 for his time.

Just take care of it, and dont spill anything on it

K-TRON

 

thanks man, appreciate it.

not even close to the 3 figure number, i payed about $40 (im in the middle east things are different lol)

hes my own bodyshop guy that usually works on my car, i seriously dont know why on earth a paintjob would cost $300+ at these paintjob companies... what a ripoff.

well.. unfortunatly we only did 2 coats of clear, and i can see some tiny bubbles forming on the palmrest... i MIGHT start from scratch and do it myself, only this time, its gonna be WHITE

 

Wow that is a really good deal, my paint cost in the lower four figure range, but it was more than just paint, it was over 260 hours of labor making the system perfect.
Anyways, its a real beauty.
After painting my system, I am a fan of the painted touchpad, the texture of the paint and the skippery filmy like surface of the clear coat is like their is baby powder all over the palmrest and such, but their isnt.

That's the best paint job for the money, it really looks nice.

You may second guess white, it may not show many scratches but man is it going to show dirt, but hey whatever floats your boat.

I so want to paint my dell now, but first time to get replacement shells just in case I screw up.

K-TRON

 

well, to be tottally frank, you get what you pay for, i know i paid $40 its a good deal but the whole thing was done in an hour. 260 hours mean your laptop looks more than just factory painted, im sure it looks like a million bucks.

but i could of done a better job painting myself, he just wanted to get it over with !!!

 

That has to be the messiest desk I have ever seen...

 

your notebook looks best when it's exposed! lol actually it appears to be a huge step forward from the 'before' look

 

Very cool. Gives your machine a whole new lease on life. Maybe there will be something cool to do to the D630/D830 in a few years...

 

All I can say is enjoy your system and you've inspired me to want to paint up my dell!!

 

thank you people thank you.

but one thing i really gotta stress on, do NOT mess with your laptop and paint it unless it is beginning to wear out AND the warranty period is over. unless you are rich and you can afford to tamper with a totally fine laptop.

 

Please watch the language and the beer promotions. I've removed some text in your posts that is not NBR-friendly.

 

alright so you give me bad reputation for supposdly bad language instead of giving me a positive rep for writing this to NBR????

and all i said was "if my laptop was a chick id hit it"

sure, im promoting beer and getting money out of it on a laptop website .


you can delete this whole thread, consider this my last visit on notebookforums. Keep abusing your powers.


Edit: i did not break any rules, i am NOT promoting beer, and why dont you go look for posters with real vulgar language, ive read so many here on notebookforums.

 

Yeah, okay...leave because you do not want to follow the rules you agreed to when you visited the website.

You are always welcome to come back.

 

well im back

guys any other comments/appraisals? rep points for what ive done? lol...

 

welcome back! and it looks really cool

 

can you tell me how you got hold of the actual paint and how much it cost?

 

+1 rep for having the xxxxx to take apart the touch pad, putting it back together and it works.

Very nice job! I want to do my Dell like that, just in black.

 

very sexy, wanna do mine?

 

LEVON:

Congrats on the spectacular paint and reassemble job. Clearly you have a tremendous amount of patience and calmitude.

Your signature appears to mention an Alpine White 17" Dell Inspiron. If so, where or when did you find a white Inspiron?

Dell site currently has two pages saying "8 colors available for 17" Inspiron." Something is wrong, however, as the build and buy pages only offer black, blue or brown. Period. No white, no other colors. Despite many lengthy and desperate attempts to buy a white 17" Inspiron via the Dell site, it was no go.

I'd love to see a pic of your 17" white Inspiron, as apparently that's quite a rare breed indeed.

Thanks much,
-PinkyToe

 

Thanks yea i actually had some patience about this paint job even though i was under pressure from my mom who kept on bugging me every to assemble the scattered laptop parts i had around my room for a while lol...


i ordered my Alpine White 1720 around mid june, they still had all color options back then, but i guess they were running out of colors gradually and now the only left options are 3 colors.

They do advertise its available in 8 colors, but they wont change their market slogan just because they are running out of colors/options.

They may or may not have the 8 colors back in stock... i hope it is not the last days for the 1720 to be sold through Dell.

I love the Alpine white, not because it resembles a mac in anyway (i am anti-mac) it feels very elegant, no pun intended to all other colors, but i think all the other colors (except black) are a little too extreme for a laptop. im only 21 but i woulda taken the red if i was 17 years old. the black is too professional. white is home oriented.


pics will be sent to you soon

 

I have a D600 that I'm going to start a similar project on. I'm curious, what hardware did you use to paint the laptop? I assume it was from the shop but I'm still curious. Trying to keep my costs down and I'd love to get a professional look, but I feel I'm going to have to use spraycans....

 

you dont really need any sophisticated hardware to do a nice professional paint job, all you need is -masking tape - grit paper or sanding paper - water - and your choice of spray paint.

the way my bodyshop guy painted my laptop is by using an air compressor hooked up to a canister full of paint.

but if you actually give your paint job more attention and patience you can get your paintjob to look pro no matter what kind of spray medium you use, cans will be fine as long as you take the time to do 1-2-3 and even 4 coatings of paint when necessary.

also the sanding process makes all the difference if you make the surface ultra smooth & even.

goodluck on that d600!

 

reminds me of my voodoo pc...imiola orange too...