Vinyl Dye help...masking the led's??

[John Prophet]

Ok dudes...I have done a floppy with vinyl dye. It came out ok...not perfect. No matter how many coats I put on there are still spots where the white sort of shows thru. What am I doung wrong??

Anyway, I now want to step up to a cd burner. How do I mask off the little led's on the front of the faceplate??? I know some of them can be temporarliy pulled out from behind the faceplate once the plate is off..but what about the ones that cant be?? How to mask them so that they dont get dyed over?? Or do you just dye them and then scrape it off later??

Any ideas??

JP

[sam]

ok did you clean it first with denatured alcohol and after you clean it dont touch it with bare hands , the oils from your finger prints will stand off the paint/dye sometimes leaving little "pits" in the finnish. alite sand job will help also
any paint supply /home depot has the denatured alcohol and painters masking tape , the tape dont allow the paint /dye to soke thru and it dont leave a sticky residue

hope this helps

[jmebonner]

For my cd-roms, I put the tape over the led and ever-so-delicately cut around it w/ a curved exacto blade and then pull it after it's dry. It's worked well for me so far

Uh . . . just take the faceplate off.

The little clear plastic part should pull off from the faceplate as well.

[John Prophet]

Nah, I tried to pull the clear lcd cover off from the back of the faceplate and broke it. I think it will go back on though no problem.

I figured out what I was doing wrong techniques wise....I was too close with the spray and sprayed on wayy too much.....when I backed off and sprayed rally lite, it went on good.

I messed up a lil bit by getting the dye too thick at first and it totally smoothed out the part in the middle of the cd tray cover where it had some raised letters....it blurred everything to the point of being non readable..so then, foolishly, I decided to try to dremel the letters off completely, lol...it didnt turn out so great, but I think I can still salvage the job....or else it'll just have to be a drive for me.

I might try to put some sort of small square sticker in the middle of the tray faceplate to cover the imperfection....a nice little "48x" would be cool. I think the only stickers I have though are Athlon case stickers, lol.

JP

[Idigguns]

Sorry to hear about your little mishap! When I did mine, I was able to pull off the faceplate and pry off the clear plastic piece. If not, though, try putting a dab of Vaseline over it. Then when the paint dries, simply wipe off the vaseline.

[John Prophet]

Actually, thats what I was fishing around for...because I had thought of that or something similar. I guess every drive is different also in the way the led cover mounts etc.

It ended up being that the led wasnt a problem even though it broke, because it still had enought tension to stay put even thought the little mount broke off.

The problem came in when I sprayed the dye wayyyy too thick....I realize now that the same thing happened to the floppy I did earlier. If you spray it too the point where it actually "pools up" on the surface..it wont soak in right..and in the case of my black dye it will actually leave a white looking blur on the surface. I put it on so thick that it totally smoothed and blurred the writing in the middle of the tray cover where it said "cd rewritable"..or whatver. So I putzed around trying to figure out what to do...eventually pulling out the dremel, lol.

So now I have a beautiful dye job but I ended up with a square depression in the center of the tray cover..where I dremeled and filed it smooth....if I can find some sort of little decal to fit in it I will be good to go.

At least I know how to spray stuff now....keep the can about 3 or 4 feet away, lol..spray it LIGHTTTTTTTTTLY and dont worry if it looks like it doesnt cover everything...it will spread and soak in etc. Do about 4 coats like that..done.

The drive was bought in one of those officemax rebate deals so even if I cant use it in a sale comp Im not too bad off.



Anyone know where to get decals or "badges" about one square in in size??? lol.

JP

[kevinpray]

Directron has a wide selection of case badges -- they are 1" square. You may find something there ...

[John Prophet]

Thanks

[linear1]

You've discovered the secret.

I like to completely disassemble the plastic parts, partly because I like to dye the trays, and partly because I like different contrasting colors on buttons. You can see some examples in this article (http://linear1.org/gm/archives/00000081.php).

Plus it shows what "one thin coat" looks like, just for the benefit of readers who may want to try this too.