A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Printable Version

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A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Irinikus - 06-27-2019

I bought my Onyx2 from a seller in Israel, it had previously been used to drive one of their military's flight simulators. (Our Hawk simulator is still driven by SGI hardware, by the way!)

When I received the machine, it's plastics were fully intact, but rather badly scratched, so after completely disassembling the machine, I decided to flat the plastics completely with the aim of giving them a custom paint job, sometime in the future. It took two weeks of sanding, with various grits of sandpaper to flat the plastics down. (allot of hard work!)

The time to give the machine a custom paint job has finally arrived, so I've stripped it of its plastics. I have decided that I'll go with a "ceramic white" look, as it will contrast beautifully with the translucent sliding door and the black section, where the control panel and drives are located.

Here are some pics of the stripped down machine:


The Translucent door, which will look awesome on a white machine:


The flatted set of skins:


Hopefully I will be able to complete this job, while I'm currently down in Cape Town, or it will just have to wait until I'm next down.

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Dylanear - 06-27-2019

I'm quite interested in what the white will look like?

Generally I don't encourage custom paint on vintage machines, but when scratched all to heck, what are you going to do. Almost every single SGI I see for sales these days looks beaten to heck and back. :(

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Irinikus - 06-28-2019

I'm a purist by nature and have spent extreme amounts of money getting all of my other SGI machines to look perfect, which they do.

Because all of the plastics on thin machine were intact and just deeply scratched, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to break from tradition and make this system one of the my own. (The original finish on an Onyx2 generally wasn't that great anyway.)

I'm a very big fan of Cray Super Computers, and from what I understand, some of the technology present in this system was acquired, when SGI acquired Cray for a brief period during the 90's.

One of the really cool features of an original Cray machine, was that you could order it in any color.

Just look at this X-MP:



I believe that his machine will look extremely good in white, It will have a high quality automobile-like finish when I'm done with it. (It's not like I'm ever going to sell it anyway, as I don't believe in selling anything that I've acquired.)

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Jacques - 06-28-2019

White will look mint! Especially with a mid gloss, not too shiny though.

I've always fancied a white O2.

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - johnnym - 07-02-2019

(06-27-2019, 05:47 PM)Irinikus Wrote:  The time to give the machine a custom paint job has finally arrived, so I've stripped it of its plastics. I have decided that I'll go with a "ceramic white" look, as it will contrast beautifully with the translucent sliding door and the black section, where the control panel and drives are located.

Wasn't there a SGI machine with white and blue/purple plastics?

Ah yes, the nodes of an Onyx4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmQTJoO6TKo

So the main plastics in white and the translucent front door of your Onyx2 could "perfectly" match that. Can't wait to see the result.

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - BackPlaner - 07-03-2019

Can't wait to see it!

Carry on. 👍

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Irinikus - 07-05-2019

Things are moving forward, I got all of the necessary materials today:



It's going to be a three-stage process: plastic primer, then grey paint primer and then the color coat which is a paint and hardener (White in this case).

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Irinikus - 07-13-2019

I started the spraying today: (The plastic primer and grey paint primer have been applied and then flatted and I will apply the 2K white paint coat tomorrow.)

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Jacques - 07-13-2019

Niice!

Have you got an oven to bake the 2K, or you air drying it?

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RE: A custom paint job on an Onyx2 - Irinikus - 07-13-2019

The paint is lacquer based with a hardener. I don’t have an autoclave, so it will be air dried.

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