Modding Three Gram Keyboard Plates for Tesoro to Giveaway

Modders-Inc was able to have a chance to work with Tesorotec on helping create some custom plates that go on their GRAM series keyboards. What we had to do was come up with several different designs that would be used for a huge giveaway! These one-of-a-kind keyboard plates will be paired up with a keyboard and then they will be given away to some super lucky winners. Get a peak at some of the other keyboard plates that we modded in the Modding Tesoro Gram Keyboards article.

I was able to grab 3 out of the 10 total plates we will be doing and created what you will see below.

First up on the bench was a fairly easy paint job, but with pain I had never used before. Coloring changing paint has been all the rage for quite a few years in the custom car world, but I had not seen it used to often for case modding let alone keyboard modding. I thought would be a great look for those that have lights on their desk or back-lit keys as seen on the Tesorotec.com site.

I first sanded down the plate and repainted it a gloss white. Normally you lay down a gloss black base for color changing paint, but I wanted to do anything but black. Next you need to lay down several layers of the color changing paint. You need to allow it to dry for about an hour before doing the next layer. I also found out that as you allow the this type of paint to dry the darker and better the coloring changing effect starts to show itself. You can get several different combinations of the colors for this style of paint. For this project I picked Gold, Orange, Purple, and Red. The images below help show a few of the colors, but it is almost impossible to show all the color in a single image, but if you win if you can enjoy all the colors in person.

Number two plate is going to be one a favorite style of mine, the worn and rusted look. I have created this look a few times and each time I enjoy it more. You can see in more detail on how to do this effect in this how to – Creating Rust and Worn with Paint, but first lets looks at what I did here.

I sanded down the black plate to where several areas that metal came through. I wanted this to add to the effect of the worn look. Three different shades of brown are used to make the underlying rust.

Over the top of the of the brown I put a top coat of red. I thought this would be another great diversion to the everyday black.

After doing the trick of how to make the rusted effect look real the end result started to take shape.

How to – Creating Rust and Worn with Paint

My third plates is painting technique I have not tried before, but pretty sure I could do it. The effect is Water Droplets. This requires to something you are told not to ever mix, paint and water… unless you are using a water based paint, that is another subject. After sanding down the plate I painted it a gloss blue color for the base.

After letting it dry completely I grabbed my water spray bottle and begin to apply water, lots of it. For this effect you need to make sure you have different size droplets to create a great looking pattern. Next you take spray paint and lightly fog over the top of the water from a very low, almost level, angle. Doing this allows the paint to stick to the edge of the water. Next up the magic happens and it is the easiest part of the process, let the pain dry. Once the paint drys it allows the paint to stick to the base coat and creates an awesome 3D looking effect.

I had a lot of fun with this modding project for Tesoro and hopefully you will be able to win on them. Remember to check back on the site for more details. If you would like to see more about the process of painting the keyboard plates please watch the video below.

Get a peak at some of the other keyboard plates that we modded to giveaway in the Modding Tesoro Gram Keyboards article.