Well, I have a dissasembled B&W G3 and the plastic is tinted, not clear. I have looked at other mods and they paint over the plastic, and it looks okay. Now there is Krylon, Automotive Paint, and others available.

My question here is which paint to use, or should I just forget the plastics and work from a base, stripped away, case.

The metal case looks actually pretty cool w/o plastic.

I have the same problem with my B&W. I dont want to paint over the plastic. If the case could be polished clear you could paint the inside of the plastics without that froted look. That would be a lot of polishing and the handles would be a real pain.

You could do some cutting in the metal. Put some designs in there and cover the case in plexi with some lights inside.

Krow

are you planning to color the front as well? Or should the side colors match the blue front. Personally I'm not a fan of that particular color of blue on that machine.

no, that bondi-ish blue is not my thing either

Hey, here's what I've come to with the B&W's.

Apple'e color scheme was garish. We all know that. And the semi transparent plastic isnt so hot either. Especially in the blue color. What I did was strip the whole unit apart. I sanded all the components with 220 grit sandpaper in order to take down the shine. Then, from my local art store (Plaza!) I picked up paint. I purchased the Createx Auto Air Base Coat White, Pearl blue, and Metallic White (fine) they come in four oz bottles, and are about $5 a pop.

Now, figure that this stuff is liquid paint, so you need an airbrush or a sprayer (gravity fed work best) to shoot this stuff. Home depot can hook you up with the goods. Anyway, I sprayed on the base white onto everything. All the plastics, the metal chassis, the hoops, and the apple logos, once pried off the shells. Then, I pulled out a heat gun and heat cured all the base coat. Once the base coat was done (three super light coats build up nicely with no orange peel) I sprayed the respective parts blue, and white. About four light coats were sprayed, with heat curing in between. (I forgot to mention, the paint is water based, so it heat cures in minutes)

Once I had all the parts painted, I gave them two tack coats and one wet coat of Valspar Crystal Clear Super Enamel clearcoat. Once put back together, all the bases are metallic white, with blue overtones. I plan to spray flames onto the top and sides of the unit in the matching blue color, and pinstripe in silver as soon as I have time to finish up the whole thing. Personally, I think mine's better than Apple's. My apologies for the photos, they're not the best.

all photos are available here:

http://www.modyourmac.com/pearlblue

I like it! It has a smooth very plastic look to it. Probably not a mainstream look, but it has a personal unique style. Can't wait to see the flames and pinstripes

well, yeah, platics would work. I'm using automotive paint with a heavy pigment content so it'll have that nice deep lustre. Unfortunately, the linked photos really dont do it justice. They kind of flatten it out. Everyone who's come into the house/shop and seen it has been nuts over it.

Necessary stencils are arriving from autobodydepot.com today. So, assuming the masses dont bring their mac's into the shop for repair (work as an apple tech) I should have flames done by the weekend, and be able to update at that point.

J

Post edited by: modyourmac, at: 2004/08/17 12:42

You have answered my question in folds. Thanks modyourmac! I'm going to see about getting some auto paint then. 220 is a good grit, but I love the feel of 320. I took some 320 to the Apple, and got rid of the scars. Then went up to 1500 and made it smooth as silk. Some tack cloth will finish the luster, though I'm just going to paint it, so whats the point in that?

I'm going to work out the templates for everything and get it all measured out also so people can create their own panels , if I have the time to before assembling the Mac again.

Rock on, glad to help! If you pick up the Auto Air paint, you'll get good results. check it at http://www.autoaircolors.com. If you have any questions about it or working with it, lemme know.

J

Now for the 64 thousand dollar question:

Did you paint, or keep, the I/O cover?