Several years ago, when I built my Phantom tenkeyless keyboard, I had built a case for it from parts from a BTC 5140 top and from bits and pieces of several other keyboards and not-keyboards.
For keycaps, I had chosen thick Cherry PBT in cream-white and grey, scavenged from multiple keyboards.
I liked the slight curve of the case top because it reminded me of the Apple Extended Keyboard II and at one time I tried putting an enameled Cherry Pin at the top corner, but in the end I opted not to.
Of course, the case looked like crap made from different plastic pieces so it had to be painted. For primer, I used
Duplicolor beige primer that I already had on hand and found that that was not too far off from the Cherry grey, so I kept it.
Unfortunately the primer has a slight green tinge, but I have not heard about anything better.
After a few years, the paint got quite scuffed so I took it apart and touched up the primer.
I have not heard about any better beige paint for painting cases to look like vintage.
Then... I read about a
3D-printed Apple II Raspberry Pi Enclosure, and the recommendation was that it should be painted in Montana Gold Sahara Yellow.
For an "Apple Platinum" look, the recommendation was Montana Gold Shock White Cream.
This is how it looks. For comparison. The painted case half is in the middle.
I am not happy with that at all. It looks like plastic that has yellowed a lot in the sun and it is even greener than the primer I had used.
For comparison is a BTC 5140 (same model that I had built the case from), slightly yellowed, a Cherry two-tone cream and grey keyboard, and an Apple Extended Keyboard II (keys switches harvested for other things)
I also painted a card in Montana Gold Elm, which looked greyer in the swatch in the store - but the swatch must have been dirty. Montana Gold Shock White Cream is supposed to be whiter and only slightly less yellow than that card -- but you can see that the Apple Platinum style is darker.
The Apple keyboard is also darker than the Cherry.
So, MG Sahara Yellow was not a good recommendation at all, and it is probably that the MG White Cream would be a poor choice as well.
On the plus side, however... The Montana Gold spray paint often gives a grainy finish, which is really unwelcome for almost every application
except when you are trying to mimic the finish on a plastic keyboard case.
What do you think I should do? Strip and repaint with primer, go for a completely unsaturated grey Montana Gold or something else?
If you have a recommendation for a "beige" spray paint, then please share!
