Painting a Joystick Handle?

[codeena]

Hi all,

Anyone ever paint a joystick handle? I used Krylon's Fusion Plastic Paint to paint my lightgun and it looked pretty good but took forever to dry. So I couldn't use it for awhile without having my hands smell (more than usual). So now, I'd like to paint my joystick pear-shaped handle top to match my control panel without having to purchase a different joy or shaft/top. I'd like it to look "natural" and was wondering if it's possible. Hopefully I could get ideas on which paint to use or hear some success/unsuccess stories from my fellow arcade builders.

Thanks in advance!

[Gambit]

I have only had luck painting plastic with the Krylon Fusion Plastic.

I know a little trick for speeding up the curing of the paint.  First, paint as usual and let it dry overnight. Then place it in your oven set on warm. Thats somewhere around 120 degrees F. Leave it in there for the day and it should be completely cured.

Do not put it into your oven until after it is dry, and do not put your oven temperature higher than warm. You may want to place a temperature gauge in your oven to make sure it does not get too hot.

[severdhed]

you may also want to look into vinyl dye.  You can get it in a spray can at most auto parts stores, i havent personally used it, but i know a few people who have used it on xbox controllers and have had good results with it.  It forms a molecular bond with the plastic and does not wear off. I dont know how long it takes to dry, and i heard it smells really bad when it is wet..but it gives great results that last.

[NightGod]

you may also want to look into vinyl dye.  You can get it in a spray can at most auto parts stores, i havent personally used it, but i know a few people who have used it on xbox controllers and have had good results with it.  It forms a molecular bond with the plastic and does not wear off. I dont know how long it takes to dry, and i heard it smells really bad when it is wet..but it gives great results that last.

Vinyl dye in a spray can is also known as....Krylon Fusion Plastic Paint.

[severdhed]

Krylon fusion paint is different than vinyl dye.  Fusion is paint, it sprays on and coats the plastic, just like any other paint, it just sticks to the plastic better than regular paint..it builds up on the surface and can change the texture.

vinyl dye is just that, dye.  It is absorbed into the plastic and dyes it...leaving the original texture unaffected.  It is a little harder to find, and maybe there arent as many colors available, but it does a real nice job.

[Kremmit]

Somebody dyed some white joystick balls brown a while back with the vinyl dye.  They came out looking really good, except for the fact that they were brown instead of red.  Somebody also used vinly dye on the SlikStik light-up balltops so they were blue instead of white when unlit- also looked really good. 

Obviously, white sticks will be the easiest to color- you try to make a yellow stick blue and you know what you're gonna get.  The trick may be finding white sticks to dye in the first place.  Sanwa sells white balls, and Wico's used to come in white, although they are kind of hard to come by in that color these days.  It also may be hard to get an exact match for other parts on your panel. 

What kind of joysticks do you have, what color are they, and what color parts are you trying to make them match?

[codeena]

Thanks for the replies!

I don't know the manufacturer, but I think it may be an older Ultimarc. It has a switch for 4/8-way on the side (under the control panel). The handle is black. I'd assume that black would be pretty difficult to change to blue with the dye mentioned, but then again, I never even heard of it before this post. I'm looking to match the blue Happ buttons.

[Kremmit]

Sounds like a T-Stick (no +).  You might be better off seeing if Andy with Ultimarc can get you a replacement handle in Blue.  Or there may be somebody on the board with an extra blue handle, if you post in Buy/Sell/Trade.

Othewise, you'll have to go with the paint, I doubt that dye can turn the black anything other than bluish-black.

[Vigo]

blue is a pretty common color, if you want to, you could find blue hanldles that you could interchange with your old handles...(I currently have non ultimarc handle in my ultimarc joysticks.) I doubt it would be too expensive either.

If you post on the buy/sell/trade board, ask for blue joystick handles that would fit in your model of joystick...its worth a shot, that way you could get someone to check out the handles to see if they would fit your joystick before offering to sell them to you. you could also just take your chances elsewhere, ebay often sells misc. handles with no joysticks.

But painting does work, you should expect that over the years, you may need to do a new paint job, joystick handles can get a lot of abuse, and can be sweated on. Paint can wear off, It probably will take quite a few years before that happens though.

Good luck