ZX81 Letters

Discussions about Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 Hardware
Moggy
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Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:00 pm

Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by Moggy »

Nice job there Matt. :D
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AN7805
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 4:17 am

Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by AN7805 »

Thanks :-)

it's not 100% perfect but ok.

Matt
Harry
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Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:43 am

Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by Harry »

How about using a hard rubber roller to roll the paint on
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Danjovic
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Joined: Fri Feb 07, 2014 1:06 am

Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by Danjovic »

There's a method to paint high relief surfaces using a coin wrapped in a cloth.
Lardo Boffin
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Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by Lardo Boffin »

I use a very fine brush and model paint (can’t remember which one) and it looks pretty good. Admittedly I have had plenty of practice now!
Give the existing surface a really good clean and get a large blob of paint (well large relative to the brush) and put it in the centre part of the letter you are trying to paint. Then just tease it towards the edges with the brush and the volume of paint will help it spread naturally and evenly. It looks pretty good once dry.
Never try to do too much in one go (otherwise the surface can have ripples) - it often takes two or three goes before it is is finished.
I have a cocktail stick on hand to remove over paint which happens from time to time - its strong enough to remove the paint without scratching the plastic.
ZX80
ZX81 iss 1 (bugged ROM, kludge fix, normal, rebuilt)
TS 1000 iss 3, ZXPand AY and +, ZX8-CCB, ZX-KDLX & ChromaSCART
Tatung 81 + Wespi
TS 1500 & 2000
Spectrum 16k (iss 1 s/n 862)
Spectrum 48ks plus a DIVMMC future and SPECTRA
patters
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Re: ZX81 Letters

Post by patters »

I used the Edding paint marker and it's still not the smooth finish you might expect. You can see slight texture variations caused by each dab. It's minor, but you can see it. After a few applications it's also easy for the paint to creep down the acute angles of the Z and the X for instance.
It was worth doing for one of my ZX81s which had mostly rubbed off lettering, but it's reinforced my decision not to repaint the long gone white "ZX Spectrum" lettering on my 48K.
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