How to Paint a Wurlitzer 200 (or Anything Plastic)

All of our tips about painting Wurlitzer lids and other plastic parts.

This Wurlitzer 200 (originally a model 206) had a dull, faded beige lid, so we had it painted baby blue.

We have a love/hate relationship with painting. Sometimes you have a color in your head that simply needs to be on your Wurlitzer. At the same time, painting is a ton of work and it’s not our favorite kind of work! But we do it anyway and that’s what this article is about.

The worst thing about painting is that it is so hard to find any information about it. There are two categories of painting resources online:

1. Fussy, pretentious tutorials by extreme gatekeepers. These people know that there are beginners who want to learn to paint, and boy are they mad about it. Their first step is hand-sanding the piece until you feel your soul align with the universal inanimate. If you plan to refinish a vintage object that has surface flaws, burn it in a purifying fire and come back when you’ve found something more worthy of paint.

2. People who don’t know how to paint but are willing to try it for the SEO! They’ve just bought a spray can on clearance in the worst color you’ve ever seen. Step one is digging through the recycling for something that can be hosed down with aerosol pigments! The end result is eye-searing and useless but the resulting how-to article did bring 9 billion people to the blog who can view ads for diet pills and singles in your area!!

No thanks to those people—and after lots of trial and error—we can tell you what to do and what not to do when painting your Wurlitzer. Today we will talk about painting 200-series models—the ones with plastic lids. (Stay tuned for a sequel on painting older, wooden Wurlitzers!)