Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

I'll give some vague info, but I hope eveyone keeps in mind THIS WILL VOID 
YOUR WARRENTY!!!!  If you follow this info, do not blame me if it all goes 
wrong!  :)

The first step was to take apart the whole case, took about 5 minutes to 
get it completely into a pile of pieces.  I took a picture (the second one 
on my website actually) of the case opened beforehand, just in case I 
needed to see where everything went upon reassembly. The touch strip and 
LCD display cover are both help on with double sided tape, so they were 
easy to remove.  Then I sanded down the yellow with progressively finer 
sandpaper until it was ready to paint. 

The paint itself was custom mixed colorshifting paint (got it at a body 
shop), called chromallusion by Dupont.  You see it on a lot of cars around 
where I live.  It shifts from blue to purple, and sometimes green too.  So 
I painted over the yellow with a coat of black (needed for the shifting 
paint to work), and then took a metallic blue and faded that up from the 
front of the unit toward the back.  At this point the whole case looked 
like it faded from blue to black as you went up the box.  Then I applied 
lots of coats of the color shift, allowing it time to dry inbetween coats. 
 After that I applied a few coats of clear coat, purposely keeping it from 
being super slick and shiny so I can see it with out a huge amount of 
glare.

By far the hardest part was doing the LCD display cover.  When I was done 
painting, I realized that the plastic still had yellow and orange writing 
all over it, and that would just not do!  So I tried to use paint thinner 
to get it off, which sorta worked.  Unfortunately the paint from the 
lettering had some how etched the plastic a bit, so you sould still see 
the outline of the letters.  So, in a last ditch attempt, I taped off the 
actaul clear part you would look through, as well as the front so I could 
handle it without fear of scratching.  Then I sanded the rest of the paint 
off,a ndkept at it using a 400grit paper.  After way too much time, it was 
all off and smooth looking, so I used the same blue metallic paint to as 
the case to do the back of the cover, witht eh clear part still masked 
off.  Then took a black paint marker, and traced out the clear part to 
make a border.  I may still just go to the store and get a piece of 1/16th 
inch blue plexi cut to the same size, and use that.  Not sure if the LCD 
will still show through.

The next step was to let it all sit for a few days to dry completely, 
while I undertook the HUGE task of trying to find a place to rescreen the 
letters back on for me.  Took me a lot of phone calls and leg work, and at 
the very last place I could possibly try, the owner was drummer who took 
pity on me and my quest. :)  It spent a week there getting the screen 
prepped, and that's it!  (BTW, not that the negative is made, I can get 
more cases done if anyone's interested.  Email me off list.)

After that it was just a matter of reassembly, which took about an hour. 
Over all, it wasn't that hard, but still not something you should attempt 
unless you're 100% comfortable with all of the steps.

rEalm




Hey, great paint job!  Mind if I ask the details of how you pulled it off?