I know everyone says don't paint it black because you won't be able to see the screw holes, but what if I paint it black on the outside and red or blue on the inside? I should still be able to see the holes if I have to disassemble the printer right?
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tommyph1208 55
I painted my OMO using white spray paint, you can see the results in my gallery...
I took the whole printer apart for it, and it was a somewhat huge task...
Though the end finish is very nice, Im not sure I would recommend the method to others...
I also did a few mistakes which made it more complex that it needed to have been, but I had never really painted anything of that size before, so it was also a learning experience...
Some of what I learned:
I started by disassembling the printer and sanding the wood lightly to remove any small fibers sticking up (be sure to remove any dust afterwards before painting), I think this is a good idea regardless of painting method.
Having read that many thin layers of paint is better than one thick one, I tried this approach but had horrible results... The second layer of paint would curl up in weird spider web patterns (actually somewhat cool, if I would have been able to replicate the effect consistently).
I dont know if it was just the paint, or some humidity thing, if it could have been avoided with a primer, or what, but I had to sand those pieces back down and start over, this time using a single thick layer of paint which looked a lot better, and had a very shiny and even surface.
I first had some pieces laying on sheets of newspaper and painting from the top, but the the thick paint layer would seep and run down under the pieces and stick the newspaper to them, which was hell... So don't do that.
I ended up sticking pin needles in a piece of cardboard and placing the wood pieces on those... This worked great, but was somewhat tiresome and not that stable.
The spray paint won't adhere to the burnt sides of the pieces of the wood, so I had to apply a very thin layer of some wall paint I had laying around, to those first.
The spray paint adhered nicely to this paint and the sides were easy to paint with the pieces raised up on the needles, the result is a nice "complete" look... Like the printer is made of ceramics or something
Long story short Im very happy with the result, but it was a lot of hard work, and Im sure there are better ways to achieve the same or almost the same... Maybe if you are not a paint noob like me, you can do better.
What I have seen a lot of people do is to paint the raw wood using latex water based colors applied with a brush... Its not as much painting as it is dying the wood, and the result is also widely different than mine, but I still think its a lot easier, and can look good. You will preserve the dark burned look of the sides and you will still be able to tell that its made of wood (you have to look closely at mine now to be able to tell this).
The dye process is described here on the Ultimaker wiki: http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Painting_Your_Ultimaker
Im guessing that if you are meticulous and careful, you could even do this with the machine assembled (just removing all non-wooden parts)
Hope this helps
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