Spray Paint a Thinkpad = bad idea?

Im buying a thinkpad R61 and i was thinking of just protecting the sides with tape and thick plastic and then spraypainting it with white, and the stencil in purple letters (school colors)

Will there be any foreseeable problems?

 

yes, the paint not applying then it flaking everywhere and youll find little white specs all over your house. Then you go crazy and kill yourself...worst case scenario...

I cant see spraypaint applying right to a laptop...too smooth

 

I would think you would have to sand the case a bit with a fine gritt sand paper to make the paint stick. Then you would have to base coat it a bit, then coat in the paint, probly sand it between steps. If the case is plastic, remember to use a plastic paint... If you went and googled for it, you could probly find a forum for case modding and they would maybe have a good idea how to paint a laptop

 

I painted an Apple G3 case once and it wasn't too bad. First step was to rough up the plastic with some light grit sandpaper and clean it using denatured alcohol. Then apply some auto primer to the case and sand it with some wet dry sandpaper. I used bright cherry red auto body paint for the actual coats, and I think I did about 5 very thin coats with wet sanding between each and finished with some auto polishing compound.

It might turn out well doing all that, but it seems like an awful lot of work, especially since you'll have to essentially dismantle the entire laptop in order to paint just the casing. If you decide to give it a shot though, please post some pics!

 

The thing that painting n00bs don't understand, is that the prep work is by far the most time consuming part of it. You don't just mask some bits off and spray away.

As others have said, there is a lot of prep work for the surfaces. Roughing it up so it has "tooth" so that the paint sticks. Cleaning. Priming. Painting. Wet sanding. Clear coating. Buffing.

It's a LOT of work to do it properly. A lot. And it cannot be done properly with the laptop intact - you have to take it apart and paint the exterior skins, then reassemble.

 

sounds like what you really want is to just buy a sticker instead

 

Use the Krylon Fusion plastic paints, no prep work and easy to do.
Just mask and spray. Make sure you mask really well.

Click the Averatec link in my sig for an example.

 

Circa is pretty knowledgeable in painting laptops, this coming from a professional painter. His suggestion would be the easiest for most to do. I personally would take it apart, and use automotive paints. First I would sand it up, apply some primer, sand that, apply the finish color, and if it looked like it still needed another coat at that point I would sand it again and apply another coat of finish. Then I would take some clear coat to it, and possibly even wax it after all that.

 

There's a company that does that professionally for $399. There's a thread in the Lenovo forum showing Thinkpads in all types of colors, yellow, red, blue, green, black, silver etc.

Some really looked awesome. My favorite was a bright yellow T60.

 

Your example shows a complete notebook dissembling, whereby you're painting the skins separately, as I mentioned earlier. It does not show a simple "mask and spray" as you suggest.

There is no such thing as a paint that requires "no prep work".

 

Altho i do have to admit it would be awesome to get a car like paint job done by a pro... could you imagine waxing your laptop? lol

 

There was no SURFACE prep work done, which is the most difficult and time consuming. It was disassembled to facilitate the other mods.

As far as the need for disassembly look at the link to my Asus(or any of the other dozen mods on this board that were not disassembled). It is PPG, HOK automotive paint applied by a professional motorcycle airbrush artist. The Asus was not disassembled, it was just masked. However since it was automotive paint there was a ton of surface prep work. I performed most of the prep work myself and was able to save some $$$ this way. This was the first notebook that the artist had painted. And yes I do wax the lid and palms

Using the Krylon Fusion allows you to not do any surface prep (other than cleaning) so that you can mask and spray. This is an excellent choice for those on a budget. Make sure you mask well.
It is also worth mentioning not to forget speaker holes, toothpicks work great. Just insert and clip

Everything above notwithstanding, if you have the $$$ it is still best to have it disassembled and painted by a pro.

 

I define cleaning and masking as part of "prep". Roughing the surface to give it tooth is just another step in the prep.

You need tools for laptop disassembly. You need alcohol or something similar to clean the surface. You need lint-free rags also to clean the surface. You need a dust free place (and with adequate ventilation) to spray the paint. You need to do multiple thin coats, not one heavy coat. And you usually need some kind of clear-coat to protect the paint. Temperature and humidity also affect the results.

My point was that you cannot expect good results with nothing but a rattle can, some tape, and 5 minutes of time.

Your work looks very nice btw.

 

Yep, I wasn't trying to minimize the masking. As far as the cleaning, I didn't feel like going to the store for alcohol so I used tequila , worked great.

You can paint your lappy wiith a moderate amount of skill this way and get good results but you definately need to spend the time.

 

How do you paint the Thinkpad's lid? It's got this rubberized paint. Would Fusion still stick to it? Would you need to strip it off first if using automotive paint?