{Tutorial} How to make your 360 one of a kind

Hey GC, I had the urge to help some people tonight so i figured I'd make a tutorial on what i know best, customizing 360's. I painted about 13 360's to date and everyone i did them for loved them. I'm going to show you the basic steps and what you'll need to customize your 360. And just a warning: opening your 360 DOES void your warrenty, so proceed at your own risk.


Materials

[1] Spray Paint (Get it at home depot, get some nice spraypaint that is designated for plastic, its more expensive but trust me, its much much better.)

[2] Fine sandpaper - try to get 300 grit, or as fine as you can get it

[3] Precision Screwdriver set - i got a really nice set at home depot for like 17$, its a little pricy but its worth it, you can use these for a LOT of things

[4] Exact-o knife

[5] Printer

[6] Thick Paper

Disassembly


[1]
Take off the faceplate



This is done by lifting in where the two usb ports are and pulling. It might require some force, dont be scared


[2]

Take off the hard drive



Easy, just push in that little button and lift it off

[3]

Take off the top... thing



This is done by getting a small object that can fit in the small holes of the 360 and pushing in while lifting on the... thing


You have to push in between the solid holes. Everywhere you see solid holes is where one of those clips are, so you have to push in to detatch them (and make sure your pulling up as well)

[4]

Now take off the bottom... thing



pretty much the same concept as the top one, just push in the highlighted parts, make sure to rotate back and forth... one clip on the left then the corresponding right one.

[5]

Un-clip the front where the face plate was - there are 4 clips.



just lift them semi-gently while pushing the two sides apart

{You'll notice a silver microsoft sticker, thats the warrenty sticker, if that sticker seperates then your warrenty goes bye bye, but my friend sent his in when he got the red rings and he was all set}

[6]

Now for the hardest part, you have to release the two halves in the back





just get a small, flat object, a small flat head screwdriver works best, but you can use things such as steak knives and whatever's pointy, just push your object in those holes with a bit of pressure while prying apart. This is going to take some force but you'll hear a destinctive snap when the clip is released


[5]

Now, lay the 360 horrizontally on your lap like you would as if it was in use and remove the top part, revealing a solid metal box type thing with x's on it, holding it by the metal, lay the 360 on a NON STATIC surface, if something shocks your motherboard its fried and your done. With the plastic facing up, and remove the other side of plastic, revealing all the inner workings. Leave the metal assembly alone and make sure no pets or anything are in reach of it.

[6]

If you want colored accents, like your memory card slots and usb port covers all you have to do is flip over your face plate and you'll see these springs



just lift the two ends up and shimmy it off, MAKE SURE you don't loose these, they're very easy to loose. After that just snap them out and put them to the side

And if you want to have a colored disk tray just go back to your metal piece with all the working components and pry off these two clips with a flathead screwdriver



You might have to do this on both sides to get it fully off, but its just the same thing on the other side.

[6]

This step is only if you want a colored hard drive. You need a torx 10 screw or something like that, i forget the name, but it looks like these



if you get that screw driver set then it should definitally have em. And for that screw under that microsoft sticker, thats just a way for microsoft to tell if you opened your hard drive. Although, you dont have to do this. I usually always do but you technically could just cover the chrome parts with masking tape, and get an exacto and go through the creases to block it off.





And there you go, your disassembly is done, the hardest part. This is what you should have



Once you've done this once or twice you'll have it memorized and can do it in less than a few mins



Sanding

[1]

Your gonna have to sand everything with your fine sandpaper, (or everything that you want painted). All you do is put the sheet of sandpaper on your 360 and start rubbing. I find its better to do it in a circular motion, but it really doesn't matter. Do it by hand because this is very pourus plastic that will melt easily by any kind of other sander. Do this until your surfaces are smooth and matte.

[2]

Take a wet wash cloth and whipe all of your pieces down, make sure there is no plastic dust anywhere on any piece of plastic. (don't breathe it in either, its bad for you). Then take a dry wash cloth and dry them off. Make sure there is no water, or dust on the pieces (make sure your cloth is a good one, not something that could leave anything behind)


Painting

Now that all your pieces are sanded and cleaned, your gonna want to paint them. Painting them is pretty easy, just keep the can of spray paint about a foot away and move your arm back and forth at a consistant speed. Do it kind of slow but not too slow that the paint drips/blots. Don't worry if the first coat looks very grainy or not deep, its ok you're going to do a lot more coats. Do about one light coat every 20 mins. I usually do about 10 coats, and that gives a nice deep rich color. You can give it a clear coat if you want gloss, but theres a bunch of different things you can do with it. It all depends on the paint that you get.


Logos, decals, and names

Ok, now that your console is painted your going to want to (maybe) add some decals. And here's how you go by doing so

[1]

Go on google images or whatever you want and get the picture/logo you want. Right click and copy the image

[2]

Open photoshop or whatever image editing program you want and make a new document to these settings



[3]

Paste your image into the document, it might look reallllllyyyy small, don't worry, just transform it to the size you want



(tip: when re-sizing the image to fit the document hold down shift while draging the corners out to make it bigger, it won't distort the image)


[4]

Keep transforming it until you have something like this



Print that picture out.

(tip: press command i on a mac if its a dark image to save ink, or ctrl i on a pc)

[5]

Now that you have that printed out put that sheet on top of a piece of thick paper. Not cardboard, but thick paper that has some weight to it that you can cut through.

[6]

Now take your exact-o knife and cut through the paper and through the thick paper, make sure you keep it all in one piece, this is going to be your stencel.

[7]

Once you have your stencil for your logo cut out lay it on top of your 360 how you want it, and spraypaint it just like the rest of your 360

(you might have to put masking tape over the rest of the 360 or a bag or something if your stencil is small to not get the color of your logo on the rest of the 360


[8]

Keep the stencil on it until its dried, dont try to sneak a peak, it could ruin your whole stencil, which would suck.


let it dry for like a half hour or more and your done with your logos!






Alright, thats all for my tutorial, i know i kinda suck at writing them, but i thought id be as helpful as i can be. If you have any questions please feel free to reply to this thread or PM me. Thanks for reading.


And here's a pic of my 360, trust me, this one is a piece of shit compared to all the other ones ive done. Its more like my test one to do shit on before i do it on someone elses.



(that was before any logos were done)
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Good luck with yours!
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yeah... but ever since they added that 3 year warrenty there hasn't been any problems with it

 

they recently just made the red rings harder to get, yeah

and i was scared, but im out of warrenty anyways so eh...

 

bumppppp