How to paint you old Amiga

Created by “Mike” and published on amigaplanet.gr in 2013

Initially my thought was just to paint a couple of A500 because they were too yellow. I started with various tests. The two important elements: the colour you are spraying and the technique of painting.

Beginning with the appropriate colour. The most precise is to make the shade you want by using different combinations of black. But there are ready colours, which are not completely similar to those of A500, but I did not want to do “beige” , i wanted to make it lighter in colour than the original and so I found the appropriate shade. Obviously you should not use shiny colours, but always brushed to match the texture of the plastic (and not to be cheesy!). Also before you do anything do not forget to cover with special PAPER TAPE , logos and everything you do not want to be painted, such as the tag with serial numbers.

After selecting your colour, go to the action and here is learning by trial. The distance and the amount of colour is important. Long distances and dilute quantity have the effect of leaving gaps, while large quantity and a nearby SPRAY result in run colour and “drops”. Avoid second case. Even if we are wrong (too dilute or wrong shade) it is no big deal, the next day you can repaint from scratch. So with several tests and once you paint sometimes the plastic you will have the correct result.
Let’s get to the most difficult, the keyboard. First, paint the keys while we in newspapers, (where the button rests in the newspaper). Then paint everything on the base of the Keyboard of A500. I understand that the base might be destroyed from colourings in it. Some keyboards do not match (eg German keyboard or keypad A600), so you can place the buttons in another location. Caution When removing the keys from an amiga and placing them to spare base for painting, put them right in the position where it ends. Because after colouring it will be all black and the fonts will not stand out. So take them out one by one and place them (painted) right in the original position. If you move them all together, stir them, all the keys are identical with each other and you can not put them in the post right place. So one by one in their right place. Paint is done by testing. What you should take care of, is to spray with staccato movements between the keys in order to evenly paint sides between the keys. The top surface has no problems. If the colour runs there is no problem, it will sit down on the button and stuck with the adjacent key. When it is dry, unplug the key from the base and simply a file scrape normalizes the point that was “sticking” of colour with the adjacent key and does not appear at all. Once dry and placed on the normal basis (not the spare paint) put the fonts either you have created or best buy from the internet. Here we should be careful not fucked her like me and buy fonts for laptop, why not have the numeric keypad. You will get a full house on keyboard from Pcs or somewhere from an amiga.

There are two options: let’s say you paint the A500 black. You can get stickers on a black background with white font. This has the positive that the black background cover any imperfections in painting the keys and show completely uniform. But the black background is not the same colour with the colour you have paint and illustrate the difference there being the sticker and that there is colour. The second option for the example of the Black A500, is to take transparent stickers with white font on top. The transparent black leaves the colour that you have painted to look and stand out from above the white lettering. Here the key is not covered by the sticker and the colour is uniform. The same considerations apply in white painting. You can also use blue or another colour font. At the end what you have to make are the logos, you can find the logo on the internet and print. And remember that the best result (as in photo) comes with many trials, do not be afraid to paint and repaint.
The project in the photo is not complete …
A whitewashed A500, keyboard and keys are deliberately whitewashed because the current A500 is a gift for a friend of mine.

Εικόνα
The key from near