Going to spray my case >:D

Got an NZXT phantom 2nd hand from a friend for £40. And i want to make it a bit more, personal.

I have an asus P8P67-pro and blue liquid in my loop, but i can't decide how to spray it, so you guys can decide for me! Blue side panels to go with everything else OR i'm going to get a stencil cut out, have the sides black with a massive blue razer logo. Decide for me!

I recently got a quote from a local powder coaters to paint the interior and exterior of a full tower lian li case in semi gloss black for just £40.

It would certainly cost you atleast £40 in spray paint and other materials and a very lengthy process (weeks perhaps) to get a good quality finish. Also powder coating is much more hard wearing than spray paint.

Anyway its always pleasant doing something creative yourself and end up with a good finish, but is it worth your time and effort?

I'd certainly hope it would be worth my time and effort. It may be worth looking at getting it powder coated actually, didn't really cross my mind and i have one just 15 minutes away from my work.

You sure it would take weeks? Kinda put a downer on it! ^^

Had a CM690 powdered coated last year, far superior finish than what I could have achieved spraying.
Cost about £45, which worked out cheaper than spraying, when you take costs of primers, top coat,etc.

And with powder coating you have thousands of colours & finishes, & as mention by others it's harder wearing..

sockky said:

I'd certainly hope it would be worth my time and effort. It may be worth looking at getting it powder coated actually, didn't really cross my mind and i have one just 15 minutes away from my work.

You sure it would take weeks? Kinda put a downer on it! ^^

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Well you have to strip down the case competely, take out the rivets / screws, remove any factory paint, make sure the surface is completely clean then spray a few light coats of primer, leaving time to dry and sand inbetween layers.
Then your onto colour coats, generally I would apply atleast 5 coats of colour.

Just think how long it would take to spray each individual panel and sand each one then multiply that by 9 (2 coats primer, 5 coats colour, 2 coats clear) then you may want to polish the end result to get a nice shine...

If you weren't that bothered about the quality of the finish you could just prime the entire case in a day, leave it to dry for another day then spray your colour coats then next day ETC....and have the case done it about 5 days

EDIT: oh and its worth a mention that spray painting can be incredibly annoying, a few times I've applied a layer of paint then come back an hour later to find that an fly has decided to land on my still wet paint, also dust can mess up a paint job, if this happens you'll have to sand back your paint until the surface is completely flat again setting you back days of work.

Anyway my experiences are just that, my experiences, you may find spray painting easier and less stressful than I did.

Take me 5 minutes ... na I joke.

Maybe ... just maybe, getting it done else where is the way to go then!

Its all in the prep the longer you prep the items the better the finish will be, i feel if you rish it and theres a slight blemish in the paint and you leave it youll regret it everytime you look at case.
I have done many of spray jobs on various items but you cant beat a good power coat and for £40 id snap their arm off.
Good luck and remember to post a piccy of the process allways nice to see.

Personally the spray paint finish is massively better that power coating for externals.
Power coating gives a 'orange peal' slightly bumpy look - but it is strong and scratch resistant.
looks poor on curves or if you want a high gloss finish.
Spray paints are a pita.
For a large case, getting a spray gun and paint works out cheaper - also stop all the issues with spray can heads.

link to my build log below (post 20 onwards)
Took me 60-90min's a day for three days to do the metallic blue
primer - metallic - lacquer.
And another day for the enamel black (adhesion promoter + enamel 60mins later)

WARNING! Don't do both sides of an panel in lacquer on the same day - it might be touch dry but you can't let it rest on anything for 24h.

I used 800ml primer (2 cans)
400ml base blue (2 cans - was going to be my top coat, but was too dark)
900ml metallic blue (3 cans)
300ml lacquer (1 can)
300ml adhesion promoter (1 can)
600ml black (2 cans)
£80 in paint, and a pack of 1200 grit sandpaper
linky

Having said all that - many people just by a single can of black primer and do the internal in one go with reasonable success.
It's just a backdrop to the hardware and never seen close up so 30mins/£7 well spent.

Only go to all the effort if it's external panels or flood lit internals.

shadowscotland said:

Power coating gives a 'orange peal' slightly bumpy look - but it is strong and scratch resistant.

Click to expand...

I certainly didn't have the 'Orange Peel' effect you mention when I had my CM690 powder coated.

it's a poor flow defect - very common if the firm usually only do a single type of job, so lack experance.
Also some powder formulations will appear to have more orange peel than others no matter what you try to do to avoid it (again use a firm that does lots of different jobs)

Looks like you found a good shop nightglow - with an 'old boy' that really knows this stuff (or a bloke that cares)

Well, i've decided to go down the root of having someone else powder coat it for me.

Place 15 mins away from my work are doing it for free, so i can't grumble there

I'll post a couple of pics up when they are done. Will prob start a build log for all you to see anyway, got a whole load of work going on with my pc.

Looking forward to seeing the results mate

Yeah defo looking forward to pics + its free cant complaine tere hopefully quality is good otherwise ull have fun removing it lol.

Only time will tell I suppose!

I do have a thread open for my build, it's where i'll be uploading all my pics and what not, the spray itself should hopefully be uploaded next week, the rest of it i'm aiming for the week after

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18453982

Spray cans do tend to give a slight orange peel finish, but it matches the finish of my Corsair case pretty well.



Probably better to get it powdercoated though. I went through a big can of primer and a big can of satin matt black paint just doing a couple of fan mounts for my case, so a whole case would cost a fortune in paint.

Looking forward to seeing the results!

Sides are here!

Uploading pics tonight when i get home from work, REALLY impressed with it!

Here they are









What do you think?

Very nice, i like the shade of blue youve chosen.

Very nice mate. Result on the free powder coating! I also like the shade of blue, goes well with the white. Glad it turned out ok for you


Cam.

Turned out amazing, a lot better than i could have expected. Hoping the colour will go nice with pastel blue liquid