Hand Painting Enclosures

[DanielWong]

What treatment do I have to do on Aluminum Enclosures prior to painting and after painting?

Note: not painting like one solid color, I'm going to paint my own designs on this baby.

[The Tone God]

Wiki. After you are done with that topic read the rest of it.

Andrew

[DanielWong]

ok, so paint them like they normally would, except replace the "spray" step with just my own painting?

[runmikeyrun]

yep.  Get quality paints, Testors model paints work good and now come in water cleanup.  You can basically use any paint as long as it's made for metal.  Getting out the art set won't work so good.  In my experience, paint never holds up well, no matter if you bake it or not, how many coats of clear, etc.  I've tried 99c paint, industrial paint, auto enamel, it all chips and ends up looking like crap.  A guy at work has an in at a powdercoater i'm going to get my next projects powdercoated.

That being said, a cool idea would be textured paint, mix in some sand and see what happens.

[Hambo]

I paint mine with nail varnish.

Looks like absolute shite. but better than just flat black/metal..maybe.. sticks quite well.

I'll go away now...

[joegagan]

I use any good quality oil based enamel.
rustoleum from home depot (painted my car with it)


sign painter's ONE SHOT has really nice colors and is easy to work with

as long as the alum is clean it holds up ok ( use lacquer thinner, hand oils are a killer )
On the fuzzface enclosures,
I etch the surface mechanically with a flame tip on a dremel to really rough up the surface. this adds to the durability a lot. you can see the etching, it is lower than the red surface. adds a nice sculptural quality

[darron]

definitely use industrial strengths where you can. automotive sprays work well. if you are using a primer, use an industrial strength self-etch auto primer. otherwise use poly urethanes which are specifically designed for spraying aluminium wheels. try to look for things that will be chip resistant.

[Seljer]

as an improvised enclosure finish, I stole some of my mums acrylic paints, painted on the bare aluminium and the blasted a couple of coats on acrylic clear coat on to it and it looks pretty solid today

using enamel is probably much better than acrylic, as is putting on some kind of primer

[markm]

definitely use industrial strengths where you can. automotive sprays work well. if you are using a primer, use an industrial strength self-etch auto primer. otherwise use poly urethanes which are specifically designed for spraying aluminium wheels. try to look for things that will be chip resistant.

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