C64 repaint - 2nd Chapter

Well, sometimes we simply _have to_ experiment and try out new things. There's an infamous saying in my hometown: "Once in a lifetime you have to try everything you can. Except folk-dancing."
So, here it is, I'm almost finished with repainting a C64. Yes, I know, this is not the first time I'm repainting a C64 but this is the first time I'm doing it right. At least I tend to think I'm doing it in the right way.

The case was yellow. Very. Yellow.
Keys were dirty. Very. Dirty.
There was no sunshine for a long time, I have no balcony or garden area where I live.
This made me to do it, even if some might say I'm vandalising the good ol' sixtyfour.
Whatever. Once in a lifetime you have to try it. It's still not dancing. Folk-dancing.

First question: what color shall I use?
How about the signature Commodore blue-red? -ish. It's hard to find matching colors, especially by looking at some pictures on the internet. They can be misleading, however, maybe accurate as well. So I gave a try (still not dancing) to Plastikote Satin Navy Blue and Satin Wine Red.

Well, they are definitely not similar to Commie's blue-red but these were the better-looking colors.

Dismount C64, clean it with warm and soapy water. Let it dry out properly. Start painting.
Stop.
We need a place where it's possible to use the spray paint without damaging walls/furniture/lung/etc...
Ok, whatever, I went down to the front of the building and painted the C64 with people staring at me. I became kinda famous because at the second round I've been asked what the hell I'm doing and somebody even made a selfie with me in the background, spraying.

Anyway, sprayed the case on the street but let it dry inside the flat. Not 100% satisfying but worked well, I just had to keep in mind to open the windows from time to time, to get rid of the smell of the paint.

Yaaay, this spray paint is awesome. Not just because the color is pretty but the paint gets even on the plastic. Push the button, spray it, move your hand from left-to-right, repeat. It's done.

1 day was more than enough to let the first layer dry out.

Nope, I have nothing to do with football, nothing to do with Barcelona. It just happened to be similar to their colors. I'm especially proud of the red-blue crossing on the top cover. It's smooooooth.

After a week of leaving it dry out - it wasn't gluey anymore - I started to assemble it.

And in the meantime SIDfx arrived! Why not make this C64 even more special by mounting the SIDfx inside this machine?

Great. It fits. FYI: you should use 6mm drills for the jack connector and switches.

Almost done. The keyboard looked pretty off whit the usual white-yellow-ish keys. I even tried with black-brown keys but it still looked ridiculously off. I'm still waiting for the new C64 keycap set, probably they never going to arrive... so I didn't want to order another set.

Brilliant idea, let's use the (pretty a lot) remaining of the red-blue spray paint. Similar way, similar method, similar technique.

Add a layer of matte paint and that's it. Looks better and brighter in real, this picture can't give back the proper look of it.
I still need to find a solution to the keys, or I just simply have to learn to type blind. Oh, and a nice LED that fits this color-scheme.


I'm going to post about the SIDfx next time, will write about my experience after a deeper test.
See ya' there.



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Today's music: SIDRIP Alliance - 2nd Reality (remix)

C64 repaint

After a few weeks of silence - pun intended, the previous posts were about music - I'm back with a completely different topic of renovating retro computers.

I've posted a few pictures about a C64 C months ago in this post: C64 C - I'm blue, I'm blue!
Since then I made progress with renovating the scratched case and decided to try out something new: repaint and make it unique.

Started with a warm bubble bath - no, not me, I washed the plastic case in a warm, soapy bubble bath then let it dry out. Some very fine sandpaper helped to soften the scratches, tho it wasn't enough to completely remove them. Well, my patience was over as well, so I went online to check available spray paints.

Went with a very simple grey colored spray can, he only criteria was to be able to paint plastic with it. The whole C64 case was a wreck already so I had nothing to lose - I thought.

Bubble bath followed the sandpapering session, had to clean it before painting. Then, two layers of spray painting has been applied, including 2 days of drying between the 2 layers.

After the second layer of grey paint I left it on the balcony, fortunately there was no rain, only calm wind that helped with drying.

Grey base. Well, looks better than the original, scratchy surface but it's still not enough. What to do, what to do..? Add colors! And add some well-known game characters.

It seemed to be a great idea but wasn't easy to realize it. It's not easy to draw without any talent... Anyway, I had to try it.

And failed. So I repainted the whole thing with grey again.

And then asked my wife if she wants to help me with drawing and she did offer her help! I'm a lucky man.

We chose a few classic games like Bruce Lee, Pacman, Space Invaders, Inter Karate and printed the characters on an A4 paper (thanks to Poison for helping with setting up the proper size).

It took a few hours to properly draw and fill the characters but I think it worth the effort.
They looked really cool but overall, it was just a few black characters on a grey plastic so we decided to fill 'em up with some colors.

Looks a bit abstract, right? Yeah, it's not _that_ great as I had it in my vision but it's still looking good and what's important: it's unique and it's the first one. The next one will be better, because I won't stop here. You've been warned.



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Today's music: BRUCE LEE (1984) - LukHash REMIX (performed by Kung Foo Panda)