Project: Pirate Laptop (19 Oct 05) - Completed!!! Discussion Thread: (fixed) http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=98993 For those of you who remember me you might know that the logo for my web site (PCMOFO) is a skull and swords. I got bored a few months ago and printed out the same logo in blue onto sticker paper and put it on the lid of my laptop to see how it looked. After living with it for a while I decided I liked it and wanted to make it more perminate. after toying with the idea to just paint the lid I decided I would just take the whole laptop apart and paint everything but the bottom. here is the laptop and here is the lid First I took the keyboard off and here is the 14.1" screen out of the plastic casing. here is the main board with everything else removed from the bottom This is the main focus of the mod. the top plastic piece. Notice the silly dell logo and pointless raised areas on the lid? we will have to get rid of those. Here is the lid after a run in with my dremmel then I slapped some bondo on it. the bondo is currently drying so when that gets done I will do some sanding and see what kinda results I get from my first bondo exp. In the mean time here is the layout of the parts that I will be sanding and painting. (that orange peel finish will look like crap if I dont sand it smooth first) thats it for now. let me know what ya think. I am thinking about colors now, black for the case and dark blue for the skull n swords?
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=97286 For those of you who remember me you might know that the logo for my web site (PCMOFO) is a skull and swords. I got bored a few months ago and printed out the same logo in blue onto sticker paper and put it on the lid of my laptop to see how it looked. After living with it for a while I decided I liked it and wanted to make it more perminate. after toying with the idea to just paint the lid I decided I would just take the whole laptop apart and paint everything but the bottom. here is the laptop and here is the lid ... I am thinking about colors now, black for the case and dark blue for the skull n swords?
for the colors, yes, black and dark blue look amazing together. a glossy black and a matte blue would be so sweet. is that real bondo that you used or some other equivalent product. when i put on bondo it is usually a light pink. that looks like just about pure hardener!
I may be wrong but that red filler really looks like Glazing & Spot Putty rather than "Bondo" which is mainly used smooth small surface imperfections and blemishes. If that so then it needs to appled on in very thin coats or else it comes off in my experiences.
Oooo, yeah. That's gotta be spot filler, unless it's bondo with WAAAAY too much hardener in it...LOL. I've become a little too acquainted with that crazy stuff over the last two weeks. Keep it thin and give it 45 mins to a hour to setup. Any 'too thick' spots will still be gooey underneath. Also it shrinks quite a bit where normal 2-part bondo doesn't as much.
Blast!! so your all saying that the orange tube with the bondo brand name on it is in fact not "bondo"? I just assumed that bondo was bondo... it is a 2 part mix? hrm.. their may be lots of sanding and redoing of this project. but thats ok, I'm going to take my time and do a good job on the paint since it's the focus of this mod. I went to a paint store today and talked to some of the employees who seemed to know nothing about paint. I got black and blue Krylon Fussion paint, which I hear is great on plastic so I assume would work great on my plastic parts right? well they tell me I dont need primer and it says no sanding or priming needed on the can... I was planning on priming and sanding and priming and sanding and painting and sanding etc. anyone have exp with this paint? I plan on putting a base color of blue down on the lid then masking off the skull design when it is dry then going over it and everything else with the black. does anyone know what type of coverage I should use? I assume light coats to build up to one color coat but should I do mutiple color coats with sanding inbetween? will it hurt the 2 color design? will it work well with the krylon fussion paint? if anyone has any help let me know for now I spraied some blue on the lid to see the how the color came out and to help me when sanding the bondo off. we will see what happends when I get home later. -B
I'm not a master at painting but I don know if you use spot bondo\puddy it will shrink and crack and then you will have to scrape it out and start over with bondo. True bondo should be pinkish in color not bright red. As for painting, I painted my pc with auto paint and wet sanded it between each coat, it turned out really nice and has a very deep affect. Also, I would recommend primer, if your going with black you can get a black undercoat. Can't wait to see some updates. Mod on.
even if it says there is no need to prime it wont do any harm. the plus side is you can work out most of the small pits and blemishes by priming and sanding, and in my opinion u always get a better finish.
Here is the result after a little sanding.... this bondo stuff that isnt reall bondo seems to be working ok... the sides are deff smoother and the middle square where the logo was needs another coat. the whole top needs lots more sanding to reduce the orange peel effect going on. I used the blue krylon to see how the color would come out and figure I might use it as a primer bc of how well it sticks to the plastic. I might just build up a few coats of this stuff till it looks nice and smooth. anyone have some better ideas let me know... time to stick some more bondo in that hole!
That stuff is Bondo by name but not the general 'Bondo'-style 2-part compound made famous by the modding public. It should say spot-filler on the tube. This should be fine for your use, since I don't imagine those holes are very deep. The spot filler dries to a finer texture, and is easier to sand than normal bondo. The drawbacks are that it will shrink if laid on too thick. Basically, it's for finishing. You'll just wanna be sure that the finish of the spot-filled areas matches the finish of the plastic outside of your laptop casing rather closely, otherwise after you paint it you'll be able to see where the bondo was. Some 300-400 grit sandpaper over the whole mess should match it up quite nicely. Good work and good luck!
I was at Penn State University all weekend for the first football game of the seasion so I diden't get as much modding done as I had planned. Here is the current state of my laptop, reassembled so I can charge and discharge the battery I am attempting to bring back to life. I did more sanding and painting and filling of spots. Once I got most of that horrable texture off of the case I switched over to hand sanding using 320 grit paper. I havent done much hand sanding before.. I went out and bought a sanding block and some nice 320- 600 paper for the first part of the painting. it turned out great as far as smoothness and getting everything even. I then repainted to see how it was looking. you can still see the marks a little and I found out that this is due to the fact that the filled in areas are actuially lower than the surrounding plastic so I have just sanded and filled them again and hopefully this last layer will smooth everything out. once its all smooth I can move onto the actuiall painting and figure out how I am going to get the 2 color design on the lid and elsewhere.
yeah, nice idea, wont be doing that to my laptop tho (looks sexy as is ) what have you got planned for the bottom part of the case?
well the bottom of the case only coveres the ports and bottom.... if I paint the bottom it will be hard to go around labels, un even surface, relese tabs and covers, screw holes, and then I will have to paint the battery and cd drive as well which would require far more work than the end result of having that section painted would give me. the main idea of this modd is to have the lid painted and the palm rest and hinge are done to kinda blend it all in a look nice... so I have no plans for the bottom.
Well I sanded off that coat of paint and put more bondo on the lid again. Hopefully this will be the last coat I need... Tonight I will sand it down again and see what it looks like. I will also sand the other 3 pieces smooth. I have some ideas on how I want to paint the palm rest, it might be all black or black/blue. I know the latch for the lid will be blue as will the power button so I might also make the area around the touch pad blue as well. If anyone knows how I should go about sanding and painting 2 color coats that would be a big help. I am afraid that if I paint the first blue coat nice then put the black coat on top I will remove most of the blue while sanding the black top coat.
