Lambent Darkness 7

Here are some Final debut photos of the project to see all of the them click on Day 12 please below. For your convenience a Table of contents is below .






















I put these on the front grilles for a filtration system which works out very well .


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The main idea of this whole mod is a blue light/blue color theme, all the info contained in this project I am writing to everyone in an effort to help you better understand the procedure I used. I know OCN has a couple painting guides already so I am just going to summarize the process.

First started disassembing the case took a few minutes to figure out how to take off the top part. It was 4 clips and a couple screws. The rest was taken apart in 10 min.

I had a vision of how I wanted it to look (the paint, the lights, the cabling); the one thing that I found out was, the better I wanted it to look, the more I ended up paying for the materials. My main objective is to produce the best quality paint possible with my given work area. What I was aiming for here was perfection and nothing less. Excellent quality paintwork is 90 percent dependent on the quality of preparation. To begin my venture, I cleaned my work area because I wanted to make the area was ultra clean and dust free. Next, I needed to remove the paint on the case. I started the task by cleaning it with wax/grease remover to make sure it is free of all kinds of contaminants. I began to sand it with 80 grit to remove the bulk of the paint. After that, I sanded it with 220 grit to remove the 80 grit scratches. I cleaned it again to remove any sanding dust and contaminants they may have gotten on the panels.


Table of Contents (Click on day below to view)

Day 1 -- Prep work / strip paint --This post
Day 2- Prep/Paint -- Inside of the case and Drive Tray's
Day 3 -Prep/prime (1st primer coat) -- Outside of case and side panels
Day 4 - Primed (Final primer)-- Side panels and plastic front pieces and plastic top panel
Day 5 - Paint (base coat)/clear coat -- Case body, side panels, Plastic front pieces and plastic top panel
Day 6 -Products/supplies used / components for case
Day 7 -Buffing /polishing -- Side panel, plastic front piece
Day 8 -Buffing / polishing -- 2nd side panel, plastic front piece
Day 9 -Views/pics of the assembled painted case for viewing pleasure (Excellent outside pics)
Day 9 -More Views/pics of case (More excellent outside pics)
Day 10 - New dremel and superclose view of paintjob and quality.
Day 11- Mini Update with lighting goodies
Day 12- Blue Light District's Exclusive Debut Photos (complete) !!!

That's a lot of fans !



Put them on top of the antec box wrapped up the hardware screws in separate bags so I dont loose them or loose track of where they went.



Layed out all nice an neat.

Started with stripping the parts to the bare metal so no paint problems crop up from the old finish and to give the paint the best adhesion possible.



Lots of work that is to sand all that paint off.



The case down to the bare metal. Fun times. The case had a durable paint job on it and took a bit of work to get to the metal like this.







I think that was a good enough job in stripping it down. Now for the side panels and more sanding. Stripping it was harder than I thought all those edges and small corners and pieces it took hours and hours.



One down , one more panel to go.



Finally all the panels are sanded. Looks good to me.

I proceeded to paint a test panel of sheet metal to check the color to see how it looked and prepared it the same way I would the case. Here it is :



I think that looks real good and such a nice blue. That took 2 days to do for such a little panel.

That it for today more prep work to be done the next day.

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OmegaNemesis28

wow - thats a really nice deep blue

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Lambent Darkness 7

Thanks man, it is actually a metallic blue but you cant see it cause its from my camera phone. I think it will look real hot on the 900 once its done. especially with the base/clear that im going to put on.

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SmasherBasher

Love the shade of blue.

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Lambent Darkness 7

Hi All,

I have some more work done to my project the weather afftects the quality of the job and it has to be under 60% humidity and preferably 80 degress or below for proper drying. Its comming along nicely and stuck a dehumidifier in my work area cause when I painted this morning the paint became all cloudy cause it was too humid.


Now it is time to get ready for primer; since I was serious about the way that I wanted it to look I used a self-etch primer first, it treats the metal with some corrosion resistance and chemically “etches” the metal like a metal conditioner. This is a important step for a professional long lasting job. Before I applied any paint or primer, I sprayed a test surface first.

I applied the self-etching primer allowed a 5 min flash time between coats and used two coats. Allowed all the primers I used to dry for 1 ½ hours, sanded the etch primer with 400 grit. I then used high-build primer-surfacer to fill in scratches and prepare for painting. After I applied the build primer and it was dry I sanded it with 400 grit to start with and finished it with 600 grit to make it a smooth shiny finish. I had to pay close attention to detail on the whole sanding part of the paint job, because the better I sanded it, the better it looked.

Masked the case to protect it from overspray. Preparing to primer the top part of it.





The primer im using (which is also called wash primer) which is black, is DuPont™ Variprime. The black will create great color holdout for the blue and the primer will give good durability/adhesion performance and make it the deep color which is in the test panel I did above in the first post.

I used on the inside of the case satin black coating which is semigloss on the inside. It is the almost the same used on bumpers like the Chevy Cavailer and Neon's black front and rear bumpers.

Close up view


Looking good haha! The finish came out nice an smooth.



If you were to touch and look at it in person its lustrous and smooth like satin. Awesome!





I like it . Now I have let it cure and then mask it all up to paint the outside of the case blue. Now for the drive trays.


Masked the sides that I did not want overspray on, no need to make more work for myself.


Coming out excellent I think. The dehumidifier really helps before the humidity was 80%!! Real bad for paint. The paint comes out perfect and dries to a awesome finsh.


Finished product. They look like they came that way from the factory.



That is for right now, more work to be done today. I'll post back later today when I get more work done. Been working on it since 5 am

Let me know what all of you think and please if you like it or have any suggestions subcribe to it and post Thanks for viewing.

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iandroo888

looks really good man! good job! keep goin

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Lambent Darkness 7

Hey everyone,

I have some more work done, I noticed when I was browsing around on OCN that there are a lot of cases like mine with the black interior. That is a bummer cause it now its just looks like everyone else's but oh well. Mine is a tad bit different with the satin black paint job, I know it does not make it that exciting but it's still different lol. It looks good in person though.

I got the both side panels primed.





Turned out pretty good. now to put the primer/surfacer on them, later on tonight

Did the final primer on the outside of the case, came out very good. Check it out people :





Lots of time an effort doing a professionl paint job and cost WAYYYYYY more than spray paint the base coat alone cost $56 a pint that is DuPont™ ChromaBase®. The clear was about the same price as was the primer but it will last as long and be as durable as a new car finish with the same apperance.

I would like to know what everyone thinks so far and thanks for checking it out. More updates later. Thanks for everyone's feedback.

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Lambent Darkness 7

Thanks iandroo888.

blupupher

You definatly doing this right. Good prep work is the key, your paint will only be as good as the starting surface (and each layer after that).
Can't wait to see how it looks.

fishman78

Dude! That is looking sweet!!! Can't wait to see it with the blue!!