Painting Fans

[the pokemon kid]

Hey guys.

I am coming close to finishing my ITX build and I want to paint my fan. I HATE the colour of the Noctua fans however their CPU coolers are so tasty!

I have got the Noctua NH-L9x65 which comes with a 92mm Noctua fan. What I want to do is paint the fan the same colours as the rest of the build which is dark grey and light grey.

I am going to buy a second Noctua 92mm fan to do this on, so if I do end up killing it some how... I will just put the other one back in.

I have read all the other comments about it throwing off the balance and causing the motors life span to be reduced but I am happy to risk this for the colour change.

What paints would people recommend using? I watched Bill Owens video saying to use Dupli-colour for the primer and then Plasticote for the engine Enamel paint.

Also for the rubber noise dampening, what can I use on this? I am going to paint these the same colour as my fan blade and the rest will be painted black.

Here is an image of it currently...

 

[Wraith]

I used to be one of those who would cringe at painted fans, but in all honesty as long as you do it right there should be no problem.

Plasticote are the brand I recommend and have personally used on all my mods, it gives a real nice thin even coat every time and coats build up perfectly too with excellent drying times.

 

[SeekaX]

We have a guide for that.
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=35185#entry419931

 

[the pokemon kid]

I used to be one of those who would cringe at painted fans, but in all honesty as long as you do it right there should be no problem.

Plasticote are the brand I recommend and have personally used on all my mods, it gives a real nice thin even coat every time and coats build up perfectly too with excellent drying times.

Well I took the fan apart yesterday. I have now sprayed the fan blades satin silver and the frame black. The rubber have also been sprayed satin silver as the paint I have can also be used on rubber.

Just as a side note, you cannot take the blades off a Noctua fan without snapping it. The blades are connected to the motor and as you pull it apart it snaps a small point. However its pretty easy to put it back together, I will just super glue it back together and it will be fine.

We have a guide for that.
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=35185#entry419931

I looked at this, I have dyed plastics before. Its how I got the custom colour in my main build for the cable sleeving. However I probably would need to bleach the fan and then dye it grey as its quite a deep brown.

The outer housing could be easily dyed black however, but I have now painted it black instead...

 

[the pokemon kid]

Well the Fan looks sick in black and silver! However the rubber isolation bits have not taken the paint at all. As soon as I moved them the paint cracked and fell off... I guess the paint isn't really ment for rubber then...

None the less, I bought some Idye Poly and will be dying them grey!

The heatsinks are back in and they look so sick! The top one looks factory made!