Michael Corvin

I've been wanting to do this for about six months and finally took the time yesterday to knock it out.

The new addition:


Seperated at birth:


The whole family:


And before anyone asks. Nope, no blue LEDs. I don't have a friggin clue how to do those. This is a first attempt. Not 100% perfect, but not bad for a first try. The Wii is done in a brushed aluminum premium vinyl. Shimmers in the light. Kinda cool.

jonw9

Looks decent.

Did you use Krylon Fusion, or some other paint to color it?

Anubis2005X

If you could make it a glossy white, that'd be even better. As it stands, nice job...

Michael Corvin

It's Duplicolor Vinyl Dye. Not being glossy sucks, but as it stands it is basically the same has the bottom half of the wiimote and nunchuck.

Gideon68

nice

jediwicz

Man, I want one. Now we just need to loose the nunchuk/classic controller wires.

Fincher Fan

Looks good!

PixyJunket

Man, that looks smooth. Where'd you get the dye, how much was it?

I believe the Wavebird has a surface-mount LED, they're a pain in the ass to deal with and you need a really fine-tip soldering iron. The DS Lite has the same LEDs, I was really wanting to add a blue one to my black Lite, but my soldering iron is cheap and crappy. I have to admit, if I got a new iron, a Wavebird would be a nice practice run for the surface mounted LEDs..

Michael Corvin

You can find the vinyl dye at auto places like AutoZone, Pep Boys or NAPA. It ran about $6 for basic colors up to about $12 for fancy metallics and glow in the dark sprays. I was tempted to get a metallic bright blue for a couple of the buttons and logo, but $12 is a bit high for how little of it I would need.

Then I just followed this tutorial.

pinata242

Nice.

Michael Corvin

Oh yeah, if anyone is going to attempt this, I cut a bunch of extra "Wii" logos that I can send out, no charge, if they are interested.

PixyJunket

Funny.. I was thinking you should have at least done the A and B buttons as blue, but I would have gone with a straight matte. I'm really not partial to the glossy, metallic, etc. coatings at all. I had to go by the AutoZone anyway to pick up a muffler clamp so I might just check that out.. maybe not for the Wavebird.. but I did have a few other gaming toys I had wanted to customize.

PixyJunket

Hell.. I'll give it a shot.

Michael Corvin

Yeah, I really wanted to do blue on the A & B, but I just couldn't justify $12 for two buttons. It would be easy enough to go back and do them if I felt the desire.

email me your address pixy, and I'll send you a couple.

twilightzonemailbox at yahoo.com

PixyJunket

Here's the old "shell" mock-up, for comparison:

Draven

Nice work! I like it.

I have to chime in about vinyl dye. It is AWESOME for painting plastics. When I used to do computer modding I used it all the time. You have to be careful, because you are basically spraying a thin layer of rubber and there is no cleaning up drips or anything like that.

I painted my wireless 360 controller and faceplate a deep red using that stuff. It turned out pretty good, I thought. And it was a fun little project.