this was a near disaster, but worked out ok. i've taken apart many monitors, many with violent force, but once you get above 17" they get a bit tricky. i spent $230 on a 19" philips pure flat CRT a few months ago and $4 on cherry red spray paint. i took the monitor home, opened it, made sure it worked (wouldn't wanna void the warranty on something that didn't work), and had it in pieces in my basement 20 minutes later. the issue here was that removing the front panel was a lot harder than i thought it would be. my $230 investment lying in pieces in front of me and very difficult to put back together. there's no easy way to store a bare CRT for a 46 pound monitor. things will snap, it just doesn't work. so my advice to anyone planning to paint a 19" or larger CRT: remove the back panel. this comes off easily and isn't attached to anything. sand, prime, paint, seal, and put back on. you're left with a bare front. next you'll need some duct tape, a few garbage bags, vaseline, newspaper, and some patience. cover the back of the monitor (that you just painted) with garbage bags. tape them in place with duct tape and try not to cover the front that you still need to paint. trim up the screen with duct tape (masking tape would probably be a better idea, but what the hell, i don't have real equipment). run some vaseline in the cracks around the buttons on the front panel. cover anything you want not to be painted with vaseline (leds, logos, etc.). paint the front of the monitor. use a hair dryer to melt off the vaseline after the paint dries so it drips out of the openings. a tissue works wonders to clean it up. if i would've done that instead of taking the entire thing apart 20 minutes after i brought it home, it would've saved me a lot of emotional stress, time, and a girlfriend being very pissed off that i spent 3 hours playing with my computer instead of picking her up like i promised. oh well, gotta have priorities, right?
