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Black Vinyl-dyed Model M

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Mikecase00:
I've completed dying my Model-M black and thought I'd share it with the rest of the geek-hack keyboard nuts.  It went pretty well, although I had to hunt around a while to find some Plastikote vinyl dye rather than the ubiquitous Duplicolor vinyl paint.  The results look good so far, but I want to wear test it for a while to see how the dye holds up.  

Here's a shot of the finished product



Here's the whole story http://mikecase.net/ModelM/Black-USB-ModelM-Keyboard-Mod-3.html

iMav:
Looks very nice Mike.  Are you planning on doing the keycaps at all?  I'd really like to know how they hold up with the Plastikote product.

Thanks for the update.

Mikecase00:

--- Quote from: iMav ---Looks very nice Mike.  Are you planning on doing the keycaps at all?  I'd really like to know how they hold up with the Plastikote product.

Thanks for the update.
--- End quote ---


I was thinking about painting the original set of key caps black so I could swap in a das-keyboard style look when the mood struck me.  I'll probably get to that in the next few weeks when I get around to dying the ps/2 cable.  Truth be told, I've got several M's and this first one was kind of a tester.

Bluemercury:
Dam that looks nice, i was considering painting my model m5-2 too.....what kind of paint are you using? did you use air brushing?

Mikecase00:
Thanks

I used Plasti-kote Vinyl Color spray paint  (as can be seen in the article on my website ;-)

I did a lot of reading about what was best to use, and it looks like the Plasti-Kote stuff gets good reviews while the much more widely available Dupli-Color vinyl paint apparently doesn't hold up as well.  So far my board is holding up great to hours of daily abuse.  The only complaint I have is I wish it were slightly less glossy.  

As for putting it on, I just sprayed it from the can.  It's important not to put on thick coats.  I think I put on about 5 thin coats which helps prevent runs and bubbles.  Pretty easy to do really.  Make sure your board is clean first though, a good scrub down with some rubbing alcohol will help the dye adhere better.

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