Its Blue! ( QFR sanding and painting tips inside! )

[Jixr]

Hey, nothing fancy, just a painted case
( and yes i know it looks exactly like another users qfr on here, but the store didn't have the green color I wanted and blue is my second favorite color )


Tips from an expert painter to prepare for painting. I've painted everything from cars, jet-skis, my racing motorcycles, computer cases, pretty much everything.
You can get very nice and long lasting results if you take your time and do it right. Even if you are using a cheap can of spray paint or a professional HVLP paint sprayer and a booth.
Mine was done with a $3.50 can of paint and left outside to dry.

1. 400 grit sand paper ( yes it takes forever ) go EASY to not dig into the plastic. Do not use any thing rougher than 400 ( I would have used 600 if I had some ) as it will just dig into the plastic and scratch it up leaving an un-even finish.
2. Sand all the rubber off
3. Wet sand with 1000+ grit over the entire body ( more time in prep work = better final result ) until its glass smooth
4. get paint
5. MIST the keyboard very very very lightly ( if you cover everything in one go you're doing it wrong, if it looks wet, you're doing it wrong )
6. wait 10mins, mist again, 10mins, mist, 10mins, mist, etc until the entire thing is covered.
7. let dry aprox 3 hours
8. Wetsand again with 1500+ ( it will still be tacky, but use light pressure to remove any paint build up, and use rubber gloves or be very gentle to not leave fingerprints )
9. Don't touch it for a day.
10. Repeat 5-9 I want to say I misted mine about 20 times or so before the final sanding.
11. Final wetsand of 2000+ and you're done!
Note: if you use a high gloss paint, the final wetsanding can take away the shine leaving a matt finish so I myself always use matt colors, and If I want gloss then I go into clear-coating.
I think most people here would not want a high gloss keyboard so I won't go into that.

Feel free to use my steps for an easy and awesome finish for any paint project.

Pics!

see how nice and smooth it came out. Glass




its a little more aqua/torquise than it looks in the picture though.

I may try to re-paint it green if I can find the right color I like. the Aqua color looks amazing, but does not really go with the rest of my set up which is mostly green.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I may either re-paint this one another color or use another case of the 4 I ordered and go a bit more wild with it.


And once again thanks to everyone who is involved in the contest/promotion and can't wait to see everyone else's amazing creations.

Oh, and here is my first attempt....
I took the case off one of my QFR's and noticed it looked kinda cool, but the PCB was still exposed a bit,


I was just going to use a black hex bolt to keep the base secured to the plate to keep it together and then use double sided tape to keep the plastic PCB cover on, but it just didn't really work out as I had hoped and just ended up with
a few bits of plastic. ( obviously I just blasted it with paint to see how it would kind of look after I decided it was a failure )

[Sifo]

Someone say blue?

[Lastpilot]

Dude, do not repaint that, it looks perfect! Great pictures and nice write-up. Man, you really put in a lot of effort when you paint and it boy it shows!

[Jixr]

Lucky me I have 2 QFR's so I may get keycaps and such for the other.

I also have an XT that I would love to paint as well, but since replacement cases are not avaliable ( I hope they will be ) I don't want to paint it. ( as it looks really nice stock )

[do_Og@n]

Looks like it came right from the manufacturer that way. Would you follow this same procedure for painting keycaps? As a finish on the keycaps so they don't wear through to quickly I was thinking of using a lacquer spray.

https://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=109

Would that work and would I apply it the same way as the other paints?

[Jixr]

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=46482.msg982044#msg982044

see my attempt at painting keycaps.


For one off keys, yes, for a whole set, it would be very hard to make them all even looking
( though I used different paint this time than i did in my keycap painting thread. )

I may try to paint the ones i previously painted again to match my new case.

the thing with the keys, is with your fingers resting on them, you will feel every single flaw, and the texture of the cap changes a bit, and I didn't like how it felt on my fingers. ( just me though, you may not mind )

[mkawa]

just fyi, if you have a mcmaster warehouse near you, mcmaster carries the norton wet papers for less than anyone else, and the norton wetsanding papers are godly.

[Photoelectric]

That's a nice shade of blue!!

I'd just add that recoat time varies from paint to paint.  Some paint really needs 2+ days of drying / curing time before it can be re-coated.  I've used some enamels that I could dent with a fingernail even after 2-3 days of drying time.  I would follow instructions very carefully for each can and make test pieces.

Also, wet-sanding with 2000-grit sandpaper is done to smooth out the surface, but it's going to end up scratched enough where it won't look very good.  It really needs to be rubbed with a polishing compound afterwards (3M has a rubbing compound, I use Meguiar's Ultimate Compound), followed by polish.  Those are increasingly finer "sanding" methods that will result in a high gloss finish.

[Jixr]

Yeah, I thought about polishing it out, but it looks really good as is.
I'm honestly surpriesed it came out as good looking as it did, since I knew I was not going to do anything crazy, I might as well
spend a weekend getting one painted so I can contribute to all the work that was done to get the contest and sale going.

I think while I'm at it, i'm going to try my hand at converting at least one key to a JH blue to try it out.

[Jixr]

amature level keyboard p0rn!













Forwhatever reason I can't seem to capture the color right, its more of an aqua color than a light blue. The color looks even better IRL than it does in the photo. And since its a red board, the plate is red which gives it a really cool look as well, but its hard to capture in my photos.

[Photoelectric]

It's delicious.  Very clean and with just the right pop of color.  I like the blue keyboard a lot.

[Lifey]

I think the wasd arrow keys make the perfect finishing touch on it to go with the heart great job!

[Jixr]

I ordered some new bits for this keyboard.

Got 2 custom printed space bars, a "jixr" one and another one,
as well as a few colored blanks, that if I don't use here i'll put them on my work board

got some switches too, gonna make the esc and space bar greens, WASD reds, and everything else blues.
My idea of a perfect board great for typing and gaming.

nice clickys for typing, and linears for FPS movement, with a nice clunky green for the space bar since I rest my thumb on it when i'm in "game mode"

Should be interesting.

[HotKillerZzz]

Did u spray paint the keys as well?
I'm thinking of doing that to blend in with my keyboard color. Is it feasible?

[Jixr]

Did u spray paint the keys as well?
I'm thinking of doing that to blend in with my keyboard color. Is it feasible?

Mine are just white blanks, easy to find online.

somewhere in this thread there is a link to a thread of mine about painting keycaps

TL;DR: for one or two keys, yes. a whole set. No.

[Jixr]

Possible chance my switches and other goodies come in the mail today, so if they do I'll be working on my main board today, and still trying to think of what to do with my second QFR... I want something a bit more flashy than my blue one.

[Jixr]

added a little bit to it, not sure if I like the new colored keys or not.
What do yall think?

Also, new custom spacebar.

[shrapneL]

Just a question, Jixr. How do you know when you've sanded off all of the rubber with the 600 grit sand paper?

[Jixr]

with the grey cases its pretty easy to tell since the plastic is black, but with the black is pretty difficult, basically, it will develop a shine, and you should be able to feel the difference between sanded plastic and rubber, but the problem is the rubber bits can kinda get sanded into the plastic, so you kinda have to go by feel and how light is shining off of it.

[shrapneL]

with the grey cases its pretty easy to tell since the plastic is black, but with the black is pretty difficult, basically, it will develop a shine, and you should be able to feel the difference between sanded plastic and rubber, but the problem is the rubber bits can kinda get sanded into the plastic, so you kinda have to go by feel and how light is shining off of it.

Ah, okay! Thanks for that. So to clarify, I need to sand with 600 grit until the top cover is black (essentially I'm sanding off the rubber and the silver paint?).

[metalliqaz]

Fantastic color!

[Mysteric]

Forgive me for being a noob, but how do you correctly 'mist' with spray paint? I've never spray painted before and want to spray my QFR top but haven't a clue how to do it or what to buy / where to buy from in the UK.

[Jixr]

Forgive me for being a noob, but how do you correctly 'mist' with spray paint? I've never spray painted before and want to spray my QFR top but haven't a clue how to do it or what to buy / where to buy from in the UK.

Basically, if you cover whatever you are painting in one pass, thats wrong
it it looks wet and drippy thats wrong.

pretty much stand back pretty far away and just lightly spray whatever you're painting.
it takes time and could take you several coats to cover the object, but in the end the more time you spend the better results you will get.

[Jixr]

ended up working on the case a bit more, I noticed some of the corners didn't get as layered as I liked and ended up putting a scratch in one, so I ended up layering more paint on it, wetsanded the case till it was glass smooth, and while I was at it I ended up swapping the esc key to a black switch instead of red.

[Photoelectric]

ended up working on the case a bit more, I noticed some of the corners didn't get as layered as I liked and ended up putting a scratch in one, so I ended up layering more paint on it, wetsanded the case till it was glass smooth, and while I was at it I ended up swapping the esc key to a black switch instead of red.

If you did not put on a clear coat, some paints are rather soft and scratch prone.  I'd recommend gloss clear.  It's generally quite a bit harder and better for protecting against scratches.

[Jixr]

I intentionally didn't put clear on it as I did not want a high gloss board. It was really just me being clumsy and careless and was throwing tools all around my desk. Should be good to go now.

[Tarzan]

I intentionally didn't put clear on it as I did not want a high gloss board. It was really just me being clumsy and careless and was throwing tools all around my desk. Should be good to go now.

You can get matte or satin finish clear coating, or gloss finish of course.  I used three coats of matte finish clear on my CM Trigger board, it still looks quite non-glossy.

[shrapneL]

I intentionally didn't put clear on it as I did not want a high gloss board. It was really just me being clumsy and careless and was throwing tools all around my desk. Should be good to go now.

You can get matte or satin finish clear coating, or gloss finish of course.  I used three coats of matte finish clear on my CM Trigger board, it still looks quite non-glossy.

Can you recommend any matte clear coatings to use?

[Photoelectric]

The same Rust-Oleum that you used.  Painter's Touch line has a Matte clear coat and Satin.  I wouldn't recommend Matte, as your Blue is rather dark, and matte clears for rattle cans generally have some milky substance in them, so you can actually see the clear coat sitting over the paint.  It's a bit muddied and will look like tiny grains of transparent plastic.  If you polish it, it might still look odd.  Look for satin and spray in fine coats, avoiding glossy pools of paint.

I'm also a bit confused by your description of the finish.  When you say "glass" that usually implies a smooth glossy surface.  Matte = frosted glass, going by your analogy.  Using a matte clear coat over your blue would add that same frosted glass effect.

[Jixr]

i was just trying to refer to how smooth it is, as its really hard to get a nice smooth finish with rattle cans without having to do lots of wet sanding.

And i've never had good results with spray can clear coating. Like you described it turns milk yellow after awhile.

[Photoelectric]

I never said anything about yellow!  Milky yellow is actually a direct result of spraying too much clear coat too quickly.  There won't be any yellowing otherwise, unless you use some poor quality sprays or overspray.  I was talking about something else.

[Jixr]

yeah, I like it the way it is. I'm not the best at clear coating anyway.

[Photoelectric]

Just trying to help since you said it was getting scratched!

[Jixr]

well, i'll just try to keep my tools away from my keyboards from now on lol.

[jalaj]

awesome writeup, and the final product looks great.
Just a question, what's recommended solution to have a finish that is oil (skin oil) resistant?

[Jixr]

most spray paints are pretty durable, though I imagine over time they will eventually wear, but for me, its not a problem because I can always paint it again and re-finish it.

[Photoelectric]

awesome writeup, and the final product looks great.
Just a question, what's recommended solution to have a finish that is oil (skin oil) resistant?

You can try 2K urethane clears or a polyurethane clear.  I know for a fact (tested myself) that oil enamel clears don't like finger/hand-wear.  I assume you're asking about parts that you'll touch a lot, like keycaps or a mouse.  Shouldn't matter for a keyboard case.

[baotung]

I need to try this during the weekend when I have time. T_T

[Jixr]

Anyone have any ideas on what else I can do to this thing? I kinda want to customize it as much as I can, just don't know what else to do without getting too heavy into mods such as lubing/springs/stickers or a custom plate.

[HotKillerZzz]

ccan u use masking tape instead of painters tape to paint pattern??

[Kian]

Literally the best paint job I have seen.  Really nice job dude, don't even think about re-painting it!

[Jixr]

ccan u use masking tape instead of painters tape to paint pattern??

you can, but there can be an issue with getting the lines straight and the paint may peel/flake

Literally the best paint job I have seen.  Really nice job dude, don't even think about re-painting it!

Thanks!, While I was at the store, I picked up some more blue paint, After I get my second one painted up, I think I may layer this one up a bit more, and get some polish and try to give it an even smoother finish and shine.

[Kian]

Literally the best paint job I have seen.  Really nice job dude, don't even think about re-painting it!

Thanks!, While I was at the store, I picked up some more blue paint, After I get my second one painted up, I think I may layer this one up a bit more, and get some polish and try to give it an even smoother finish and shine.
[/quote]I think it looks perfect the way it is right now, but if you really feel like you're up for it then do it! Just be sure to keep us updated with pics as you go along the journey of doing it again.

[Jixr]

yeah, i'm working on my second one right now, but i've learned its always good to have extra paint on hand incase something happens to it

[Jixr]

I think i'm gonna give my XT the same treatment as my QFR, same blue with white caps.

[baotung]

Great guide. I wish I had time to do this.

[Jixr]

ta-da! now my XT looks just like my QFR

[metalliqaz]

Wowza!

[MsYutai]

That's really nice! 

[Narandelar]

My gawd that is beautiful! I think thats what I would want to do if I had blank white pbt keycaps and a QFR