Introduction

Recently some of you may have read my review of the Antec Sonata Piano Black PC Case. Well I have this running as my primary PC now as it is just too cool not to use. The problem you have though when you use such a stylish PC Case is that all of your other components are in that plain, dull and completely boring beige.

The solution to this is to go and buy black components or faceplates right? Well sort of. You can do that for the common components, but if you have anything other than panasonic, sony or lite-on you might be pushing your luck. I have an Acer CDRW drive, a Hitachi DVD Drive a Panasonic floppy, and a Creative Audigy Drive Panel in the front of my PC. All of these are beige, and I can only get black faceplates for the floppy and the Audigy Drive. Now that is a pricey option, at around $50, and I would still have the two optical drives beige. Yuck.

Spray paint is an option, but it scratches off, and covers up any existing textures. So I am going for a slightly different solution. I am going to try and use Vinyl Dye (which you can purchase from Repco or Autobarn) to Dye the faceplates on my drives Black.

Vinyl Dye

After doing some searching on the web, I decided that VHT Vinyl dye was the stuff to get. This cost me $12.95 aussie dollars to pick up, so it is cheap. This comes in a myriad of colours, but importantly for me it comes in Gloss Jet Black. A few enquiries with the guy in the shop and I learned a few things. The gloss is more like a matte finish, which is what I am looking for as I don’t want it to look painted. Also I learned that you can thin this stuff out by putting the spray can in hot water in your sink for 10 minutes before using it.

Some important things to note here. This stuff stinks, and it will stick to EVERYTHING. So wear old clothes, and keep it away from anything you don’t want black. As always read the instructions on the label. You might get scared by the warning. This product has been linked to birth defects and other reproductive system defects. Now take that as sufficient warning that this is dangerous stuff. An example, my head has just stopped hurting from the fumes 24 hours later. Ok, now that I have all the friendly warnings, lets look at my system before the job.

Before I started

So you all know what my system looks like before I start the dye job I have attached a picture:

See what I mean – YUCK !

Removing the Faceplates

Removing the faceplates was a little daunting at first. I was worried about breaking stuff. Well it wasn’t as hard as it looked. Luckily for me none of my drives required me to remove any screws
to get the faceplates off. Just a little bit of prying at the plastic clips with a flat head screwdriver and they all came off.

The only tough thing to remove was the little spring loaded door in the floppy drive. A bit of bending and it came off, but was a bit if an anxious moment. Don’t forget to try and remove the floppy eject button.

Ok. Now we have everything ready to go it is a good time to get some sanity back, and find an old peice of palstic to test with.

Testing the Dye

I chose an old beige drive cover from my old full tower case as a prime candidate to test with. If I screw it up who cares right. As a comparison, I have a Sonata Black Drive faceplate along side.

Ok, following the instructions on the can, shake well for a minute, and spray in long strokes. After one coat (still wet), a ten minute break and then a second coat, you should get something like this.

First Coat Wet, and then almost dry after two coats

This test has gone pretty well. Now the photo makes the difference between the two panels look much more obvious than it is with the naked eye. Also the textures are different so it is a little misleading. A good test though, so lets have a look at everything after a paint job.

The Spray

Ok, before you spray there are a few things you need to do first. Firstly make sure that the ambient temperature is more than 20 degrees celcius. For all of you people in England, you may have to fly to Spain to do this . I think this is said as a protective statement against dew. If it is cold but overcast you should be right at lower temps than this. Next, make sure you pop all of your little LED lights out of your drives, and keep them in a safe place for when you are done. The last thing you want to do is to dye your clear plastic LEDS an opaque colour.

Ok, you should be good to go. Apply two coats to everything making sure you let things dry in between coats. To make things easier I used toothpicks in foam to hold up the plastic bits so as to have them no stick to the newspaper.

Let the plastic dry for at least 24 hours before re-attaching the faceplates to your PC.

The Finished Product

The end result after re-attaching the faceplates….

The bit that looks like it is white is actually the flash from the camera reflecting. All in all I am stoked. This is much sexier than the crappy beige faceplates, and you will notice that I haven’t lost the texture of the CD and DVD labels.