painting drives + keyboard keys

[benneke]

ok, now that i am modding my pc, i want to paint my dvd/cdrw/live drive(s)+ i still have to paint my keys of my keyboard. but the problem is that i want to keep the letters/words readable. Is there a way to do that????
the colour that it will be painted is 'Motip 01640 HG. carmine red ral 3002'

[CrawlingEye]

Disassemble the keyboard (unscrew the screws from the bottom, remove the face plate), now you just clean it off and paint it. Wait for it to dry, put some clear coat on it, wait for that to dry, reassemble, wah-la, painted keyboard.

[benneke]

Originally posted by CrawlingEye
Disassemble the keyboard (unscrew the screws from the bottom, remove the face plate), now you just clean it off and paint it. Wait for it to dry, put some clear coat on it, wait for that to dry, reassemble, wah-la, painted keyboard.

but i mean the keys
edit: the face plate is painted already a while ago (+-2months)

[CrawlingEye]

I don't think you can paint the keys without losing everything, sorry.

You could always try and find small stickers that have symbols that the keyboard uses on it and paint over the keys then put the stickers on.

I'm not sure if stickers of this size or kind are made, but it's something work looking into.

[Mrfreddio55]

hmm, well i think what you possibly could do (if you wanted to) is go through all of the keys and mask off the letters with masking tape, then paint away!
Time consuming: yes.
Worth the work: Yes.
overall i think itd be worth it to cover the letters up (i'd cut the ecxess away with an x-acto knife) that is, of course unless you can find some letters that will match the old ones

"Fred"

[CrawlingEye]

Have you considered making stencils and having a picture of the board to refer to once you're done?

You could paint the board then make stencils of the letters to perhaps use white-out or a paint marker to go over it with?

It'd be a little more fool-proof that way, but you'd just have to make sure that the stencils came out well.

[Mattbert]

They have some decals that people use to use to label circuit boards before the lettering was just ecthed onto the board. They are called decadry lettering I believe. I have seen other people who painted their keys use there things and the letters look like they were always there. Problem is that they don't seem to have the special symbols like the windows key and the file menu key or return and tab keys. Basically anything with a picture it seems. Other problem is no one who used them wrote where they got them from. Even tried a google search and couldn't find a good link I even posted a thread here for this but no one here seems to know either

[TAZTG]

You can also dye the keys instead of painting them. That way you should still be able to see the lettering. Example if I dyed mine blue it would be a lighter shade and the black would show through.
I have seen some MODS done this way but can't remember which site.
Good old food coloring dye should work the keys should absorb some of it. Find some plastic and test it out see if it works. To make a lighter shade of color add more water...

[CrawlingEye]

You always could use a labeling machine and just use an xacto knife to cut out the letters, so it doesn't look sloppy.

[joerg]

There is a peacli marker ive seen paintshops use that when a pplied over something the paint will come off the markered in areas when it is dried and rinsed. I dont know for sure what they are called though. Or ive seen plastic key board covers that have all the sybols on them.

[bimbim18]

personally i think imma paint my keyboard all black and use some of her sexy nail polish (bright red) to just paint the letters and then just clearcoat it, if i do it right it'll give it a grafitti look