How to Paint a Drive Bezel-Computer Drive Bezels Painting-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

How to Paint a Drive Bezel?

by Tom Night

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The following advice is based on many years of experience. It is provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Directron.com is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of these advice. You are welcome to distribute these tips free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial purposes.

Introduction
Removing the Face Plate
Preparing to Paint
Painting
Conclusion

Introduction

Did you just get a new shiny black or bright red tower case but have old plain-jane beige drives? If you want your plain-jane beige drives out and brand new matching ones in don't rush out and get new drives, and don't bother with stick on plates. It's very simple to paint your current drive(s) to match.

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Removing the Face Plate

Now when painting a drive, you need only be concerned with the visible part of the drive: the face plate / front bezel. The first step then is to remove the visible part: The face plate.

Now your first thought may be to pry off that faceplate, but wait a second. For the majority of Optical Drives the part of the bezel covering the drive tray must be removed first. To remove this portion of the face plate, the drive must be ejected. Most drives have a manual eject button that can be used by using a small pin or paper clip. That can be done as shown to the right.

Note: Some drives do not have a manual eject function. For those drives you will need to connect the drive to a power supply and eject the drive as if you were ejecting a CD. Once the tray is ejected, examine the front part of the drive tray. Each one is a little different, but look closely and use common sense. Most have two small notches that must be pulled away from the tray in order to allow the cover to slide off. One of the notches is shown below.

Manipulate the notches and remove the part of the faceplate covering the tray. To do this, grasp the tray between thumb and forefinger, with thumb on the notch. Gently pull away from the tray so as to lift the notch away. Then push gently upwards, so the notch is barely over the edge of the tray. Repeat this process on the other notch. Once both notches are removed the plate should be freely removable.

Once the plate is removed, push the tray back into the drive.

Next, locate the clips holding the faceplate in. They are usually on the bottom, top, and each side, as shown below:



Top Clip	Bottom Clip
	Side Clip

Press them all in, at once. Since you do not have 6 hands to work with you'll need to find a different means of pressing them in. One shortcut is to use a paper clip between the drive and faceplate as shown to the right. A small flathead screw driver also works well.

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Preparing to Paint

Once the faceplate is completely removed painting can begin. First check the buttons of the drive. Some drives have buttons that are not attached to the faceplate. The picture at right shows a bezel with attached buttons.

If you're one of the unlucky ones who have attached buttons, examine them closely. Many will just pull off. Some have a small tab that you press down on, and then pull off, if not painting may be difficult.

The next step is to clean the drive covers. Wipe down all parts of the front bezel with a Kleenex or soft towel and use a paper clip to remove any dirt accumulated in grooves / corners. Once this is completed done take a break if needed and come back ready to paint.

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Painting

To paint the right way you'll need the materials listed below:

Denatured Alcohol - For cleaning
Primer - For Priming
Paint - For Painting

First take a paper towel and moisten it with the Alcohol. Rub the drive covers down with it. This removes any oils or dust that could cause adhesion problems with the primer. Once completed the bezel is ready to prime. Get a nice, ventilated spot (especially if you're doing several covers at once) that is away from bugs and small children. Lay down the primer evenly, staying at least 6 inches to a foot away from the cover. It is infinitely better to sweep the can back and forth 20 times than to put it 2 inches away from the cover and make pools. Once this is done the faceplate is primed. Let it dry for several hours.

Now what happened to the Black? Well the Primer isn't meant to dry black. In fact, isn't this the color of the can top?

Anyway, Shake/Dust/Blow off the plastic to get rid of the dusty primer particles. This should not scrape away the primer itself, just remove lose primer particles so there is not much sandy material on the plate when picked up. Now all that is left is to paint the bezel. Use the same techniques as the Primer. If you apply too much paint or it crinkles up, you'll need to use sandpaper to sand it down, and then repeat the entire process starting with Alcohol.

Let the paint dry, and you've got your newly matching faceplate!

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Conclusion

Once the faceplate is painted all that's left to do is to snap it back on. Remember to do the front cover first, then remove the drive tray and slide on the drive bay cover. I hope you've enjoyed this article. Good luck on your attempt!

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Related Items: | Optical Drives | Painting Services | Color Everything |

Customer Comments:: Thank you for this article, we have now painted four different drives to match our black cases, and they all look wonderful. We could not have done this without your article giving us the nerve to try it.

From our experience we offer two suggestions to make the article even better.

1. The article says if you can't get the drive tray to open with a paper clip, then power it up and press the eject button. Why not just eject the tray before you shutdown the computer and remove the drive, then there is no need to put it back in the computer just to open the tray.

2. The article says after removing the tray faceplate to push the tray back into the drive. Why? The tray has to be out to reassemble the faceplate. It is easier to reassemble the faceplate to the tray while the drive is on the workbench rather than back in the computer.

Thanks, Fred O., 6/10/06

This information has been provided as a reference. Directron.com is not responsible for any problem as a result of properly or improperly following the advice above.

Last Updated: 6/17/03

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