Quadra 7100 Digital Camouflage

I've painted a few cases since joining Applefritter. Most have been 'experiments', which means: 1) They're done on old PCs that I don't care about, and 2) I wasn't impressed with them enough to move my daily-use motherboards into them.

The Quadra 700 case I started with had been somewhat successful and useful.

Quadra 7100 - before

It was painted with dark red Krylon Fusion. Fairly soon it chipped, and after resting my camcorder bag on top of it, the paint was damaged from the vinyl of the bag - and this was at least a month after painting. That experiment was a written off as a failure. The remaining Fusion paint my wife put to great use on garden pots.

After seeing tmtomh's excellent Quadra 7100b, I decided to resurrect my 7100-in-700 project.

The Quadra 700 case was sanded with a random orbit sander to remove most of the Fusion paint, then wet-sanded with 150-grit emery cloth to clean up.

Planning on using the 7100's AV card this time, I cut a hole for it using my Dozuki saw, and cleaned up that hole, and the original cuts I'd made in the case, with a combination of the Dremel and files.

I was stuck on how to repaint the case, until I stumbled across a photo of an F-18 jet painted up with a newer 'digital camouflage' pattern. I found the vintage-computer bitmap look quite appealing, and decided that's what the case would get.

F-18 camouflage

The inside and outside of the case was sprayed with matte white Krylon enamel indoor-outdoor paint. It's recommended for just about everything, and dries quickly.

Quadra 7100 grid

I removed the 'weatherstipping' from the inside of the case that presses against the lid. Anti-vibration? Don't know, but it had red Fusion paint on it, and I wasn't about to re-paint it or clean it.

I removed the metal shielding from the back of the case. After cutting the hole for the 7100's AV card (thanks again for the advice tmtomh!) it was ruined anyway. In retrospect, I should have also cut a hole for the third Nubus card.

The remaining metal shield on the side of the case was removed and painted with a matte black Krylon, as was the speaker housing, the power/operator buttons and the drive/floppy carriage. I removed the top panel from the power supply, and painted it black as well.

Quadra 7100 insides installed


I was afraid the matte black would rub off on the matte white of the case, so I painted the fronts of the power buttons with a dab of gloss black enamel, and being extra cautious, gave them a dab of silicon grease to slide on.

On to the camo pattern:

Quadra 7100 front


I'm lucky enough to own an airbrush: A Paasche model H. I considered masking and painting the camo pattern with a spray can, but figured the amount of masking involved, and risk of overspray and difficulty of cleanup made airbrushing a better candidate.

I mixed up a medium gray using Liquitex acrylics, thinned with methyl hydrate (rubbing alcohol works as well, so does just water, but it takes far longer to dry). Using acrylics over enamels gave me the ability to wipe up mistakes on the surface without damaging the white undercoat.

I made a printout of a few random shapes created by turning an image into a bitmap in Photoshop, and selecting a very small portion of that image. I blew it up until I had massive, square pixels, then saved it and printed it out from from Quark Xpress. From that, I cut out a few shapes to use as a stencil.

Quadra 7100 top


The larger shapes were held onto the case with two-way tape. I airbrushed the gray over the stencil, then carefully pulled the stencil off. This only made it through a couple sprays before the paper became mushy and ripped. I made s smaller stencil, and just rotated it to vary the pattern. I also used low-tack masking tape to create a few panels.

Quadra 7100 empty


Once that had dried, I added white to the paint, and sprayed another layer of pattern. I kept the spray light, so some of the first coat of gray would show through, creating depth.

I let it dry, then gave the airbrushed areas a coat of an acrylic matte coat to protect them from scuffs and scratches.

Quadra 7100 LED


The 7100 logic board had its power LED removed, and a white LED put in its place. As you can see from the photo, the LED is a white-ish blue. The hard drive - for now an Apple-branded Quantum 500MB, has no built-in LED, and I have yet to find a connector small enough to attach to the drive's LED interface. If I do, it'll get a white or blue LED.

The moment of truth...

Quadra 7100 booting System 7.5.5


All back together, it boots! The AV card was a bit loose, but once the lid of the case is on, it's held in firmly.

Things to do still:

Case badge:
I've got some clear inkjet decal film onto which I'll print a case badge.

"Feets:"
Every Mac needs some feet to rest on. Home Depot carries transparent stick-on rubber buttons for putting under decorations and counter-top appliances. These should do the trick nicely. I figure I'll put four on the bottom, for a micro-tower position, and four on the side for a desktop configuration.

The whole process took two days. I'm impatient when it comes to painting, which has ruined more than one project. To be really safe, I should have waited longer for paint to cure, but I didn't. Now that it's done, I've got to wait until I get the decal and feet done before I can use it, so it should have time for paint curing. Acrylic paint is cured within days, but enamels can take up to two months to be well and truly cured.

I'm happy with how it turned out. The digital camouflage pattern looks just as I'd envisioned, and my hope is it'll be much more durable than the original paint.

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Comments

illiac's picture

Wow. Incredible job--the pattern came out looking very precise. i always liked quadra cases...the only thing really holding them back aesthetically is the color. congrats on breathing new life into it. :mac:

tmtomh's picture

Fantastic Job! I especially appreciate the small details (many of which I neglected to deal with -- like you I'm impatient!) In particular I like that you painted the inside of the case, that you removed the metal shielding (and then cut it more precisely than I did, I assum), that you painted the inside components black, and that you didn't cut away the entire rear port area.

One question: have you hooked up the floppy drive? If so, did you have to clip a wire (and did you keep the 700's original floppy drive)? If you did clip a wire, which one? I know it's wire #9, but I don't know that's #9 from the left or from the right...

Matt

eeun's picture

That's something I'd forgotten about mentioning...
I removed the auto-insert drive and replaced it with a slightly more modern one back when I first tried swapping boards. I didn't know about the wire-snip trick back then, and I have no idea where the original drive's gone.
The only modification I had to make after painting the drive bay was to tack the rear mounting posts of the floppy into the bay with some hot glue, otherwise it tends to fall down onto the motherboard.

eeun's picture

I put the finishing touches on the case yesterday.

The feet are installed - they're just stick-on pads, and don't interfere with the look of the case.

7100 feets

The decal was printed with my laser printer onto transparent waterslide decal paper (an example of the stuff here).

7100 digital badge


The Apple logo was painted with a slightly bluer shade of gray, just so it stands out a little bit from the other gray (the sun was reflecting off my camera, which made those lighter arcs on the case).

7100 front finished

Here's the back of the case. I found white paint is very unforgiving - it shows every cut that's not just right, every nick in the plastic you thought you'd cleaned up, every ding and bump. Don't look at the back too much, okay? Wink

7100 back

Decal and case badge were given a coat of acrylic matte coat.

looks good ... i like the design!

you should make a new port plate (white plastic or metal?) to tidy up the back abit ...

TOM

LimeiBook86's picture

Dude I think that looks awesome!! Dirol

I think you did a great job, that really looks sweet.
Keep up the great work Wink

-Limey

eeun's picture

Thanks for the kudos, everyone.

I like the idea of making a new backplate for it - that would really put a polish on the project.

I've been pondering a IIcx case I have, and how a Beige G3 board fits in it nicely...THERE would be a perfect place for a custom backplate, expecially for the Wings card.

It would need a lot of work:
Custom mounts for ATX power supply
Custom cage for drives - CD-ROM drive too deep and would hit power supply or PCI/AV cards - mount to open on side of computer?
Hard drive could mount to side of case, or under perp-mounted CD drive...

Hmmm...I've still got three days of vacation left...if I make a mess, I'll take plenty of pix.;D