How to black out silver trim on the ASUS Nexus 7
A little while ago, I damaged the silver bezel on my ASUS Nexus 7 and sanded the bezel to repair the damage. While working with the Nexus 7 and sandpaper, I noticed that the plastic underlying the silver paint was actually a flat black color, and matched fairly well with the back of the device. I finished the repair, but earlier today I got bored with the silver bezel on the device and decided to give the black bezel idea a try.
I got the same high grit sandpaper that I used for the earlier repair and began to sand all sides of the device. As it turns out, I should have gotten a coarser sandpaper to begin with, as using the high grit paper took quite a while when working on the entire bezel of the device. I also figured out fairly quickly that it was much easier to sand the bezels properly with the back cover of the Nexus 7 removed. I would have taped up the front with painter’s tape, but it already had a good screen protector so I decided to risk it.
It took about 45 minutes of at first vigorous sanding and then a few minutes of detail work, but eventually I got the bezel to pretty much where I wanted it. The process really isn’t very difficult, and only requires some patience and about $1.50 worth of sandpaper, which is why I didn’t describe it in detail here. Since there is no painting involved, all you have to do is mark of any areas that you don’t want sanded, and then spend some time sanding and smoothing the finish to where you want it.
For just a couple dollars, I’m quite happy with how this looks, and with further refinement the black bezel could potentially look even better. So, this mod isn’t difficult or expensive, but most users are hesitant to take sandpaper to a brand new tablet and see what happens. Fortunately, the point here is mostly to show what the results look like, so without further delay, more pictures of the mod can be found below.
