Cleaning and Refurbishing old, tattered plastic.

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Marmalade · #1 Post by **Marmalade** » Mon Apr 07, 2014 8:07 pm

Hey guys. Nice forum you got here. I've been a long-time lurker.

I've been looking to make a T60, T61p franken pad. (SSD, Core2Duo T9500, 8gb RAM, IPS Panel, the works).

But alot of the T60's avaliable (specifically on ebay) are scratched and damaged in ways, it's hard (and expensive) to get a pristine, or even 'new' one.

Does anyone have any techniques, or guides, to cleaning up and 'refurbishing' all the plastic and chassis? I thought about dismantling the whole thing and dipping it in some sort of black plastic chemical like I've seen done before on a few other computer components, but I really have no idea on what to do on this.

Thanks in advance.

ajkula66 · #2 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Apr 07, 2014 9:56 pm

Welcome to the forum!

There is no "refurbishing" when it comes to plastic parts on ThinkPads. If you want them to look new or close to it, you'll have to get NOS or well-kept used items.

Happy FrankenPadding.

Medessec · #3 Post by **Medessec** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 3:12 am

Yeah... good 15" T60 parts tend to be a bit harder to obtain than the 14" parts, so there's definitely more patience involved in it.

It's usually best to get a full T60 with UXGA display, and a full T61 with the parts and CPU you want already functioning in it (for example, you want a T9500 and 8GB RAM, I'd put all that in a full T61, and using it to make sure it works perfectly, before transferring the motherboard and CPU into the T60 chassis.) It sounds expensive, but Frankenpadding usually has to be if it's done right.

As for your original inquiry, I'm really not aware of any way of retexturing or rebuilding the plastic panels of a T60's exterior. You're going to have to wait and see if anyone else on here has any idea... maybe, since you've seen videos on it... I wouldn't doubt that others have tried something like that.

Frankenpadding is a pretty serious custom Thinkpad modification, and a lot can go wrong in it. Sounds like you've done a lot of reading up on it already, but feel free to ask any questions you might have on here. We'll help you out. I've done three Frankenpad conversions so far, one of those being an NVIDIA chip board.

Marmalade · #4 Post by **Marmalade** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:01 pm

Thanks for your reply.

I saw on LinusTechTips he powder coated his custom rig, by a company called Mountain Mods.

As seen in this video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9kVYLQEEYQ

He powder coats his Lian Li yellow, using 'B & K INDUSTRIAL FINISHING, LLC'.

Is it possible to do this to a thinkpad?

Or perhaps just some nice, subtle black vinyls would be better?

Finishing a T60 matte black would be amazing.

Medessec · #5 Post by **Medessec** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:31 pm

I'd probably be down to try that at some point.

I'd rather do it to some horribly worn out Thinkpad plastics, with palmrest shine and all the rest. Sand it down, then coat it with a flat black, or a glossy black better yet. That'd be a very interesting looking Thinkpad. What you can do with a T60 15", is get an R60 15" 4:3 lid, which is flat plastic instead of the nice rubberized finish. I'd hate to lay waste to the awesome rubberized coat on a T-series lid... so you can use an R-series lid instead to paint.

Another thing I've found recently is this thing called "Plasti-Dip", which is a spray paint that you can spray on like any other paint and it produces a matte solid color finish, but it's a sort of rubber-consistency material, and you can peel it off if you don't like it. People have been using it to paint cars without harming the original paint.

EvoT61 · #6 Post by **EvoT61** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:46 pm

Hey, any chances to post pics of your plastics? Im trying to refurb my t61 and im going to use some chemicals which i use for cars plastics and waxing but, hopefully ill get back to you over the weekend when i wil b doing my t61

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PowerPC · #7 Post by **PowerPC** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:49 pm

Medessec wrote:I'd probably be down to try that at some point.

I'd rather do it to some horribly worn out Thinkpad plastics, with palmrest shine and all the rest. Sand it down, then coat it with a flat black, or a glossy black better yet. That'd be a very interesting looking Thinkpad.

I'm afraid of wearing down the palmrest on my T60. I'm considering to buy a worn out one for restoration and field use, and save my original one for the museum.

Eventually parts for 4:3 T60 will run out, and the rubber coating can't be restored. I looked for months on Google, no one knows how to restore it to a stock look.

Medessec wrote:What you can do with a T60 15", is get an R60 15" 4:3 lid, which is flat plastic instead of the nice rubberized finish. I'd hate to lay waste to the awesome rubberized coat on a T-series lid... so you can use an R-series lid instead to paint.

I don't think they are compatible. To be fully compatible the palmrest would need to be replaced too, and AFAIK it doesn't fit (screws in different positions). A better approach would be frankenpadding using an R60 shell, see A new frankenpad is born - R60 / T61 hybrid

Medessec wrote:Another thing I've found recently is this thing called "Plasti-Dip", which is a spray paint that you can spray on like any other paint and it produces a matte solid color finish, but it's a sort of rubber-consistency material, and you can peel it off if you don't like it. People have been using it to paint cars without harming the original paint.

Plasti-Dip doesn't work. See this thread.

Medessec · #8 Post by **Medessec** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 11:13 pm

I'm afraid of wearing down the palmrest on my T60. I'm considering to buy a worn out one for restoration and field use, and save my original one for the museum.

Well... me too- I meant getting plastics from T60s already worn down. I've managed to find really cruddy Intel graphics 14" T60s for $20, you can swap the panels from that and make a pretty interesting 14" T60. A 15" T60 will be a different story, but in some cases, it can still apply.

But yeah... really all you can do to maintain the original appearance is to preserve an original Thinkpad's exterior. But this is really only a practical solution for collectors, who don't use their Thinkpads.

I don't think they are compatible. To be fully compatible the palmrest would need to be replaced too, and AFAIK it doesn't fit (screws in different positions). A better approach would be frankenpadding using an R60 shell, see A new frankenpad is born - R60 / T61 hybrid

Quite a convoluted answer to a cosmetic dilemma... it'd still be cool though.

I just looked at some pictures of a 15" R60, and I believe you might be right. I don't understand why they have to make a lot of the plastics completely different between the T60 and R60... but I guess they did. They're almost the same in dimensions...

Plasti-Dip doesn't work.

I've painted my Clevo with Orange Plasti-Dip once and flat Black the second time, both I put two layers on. They lasted about 3 weeks before the peeling became too much... I will admit Plasti-Dip is not by any means a permanent solution, but it's not intended to be. You can peel it off if you don't like it, that's the beauty of it.

Marmalade · #9 Post by **Marmalade** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:32 am

EvoT61 wrote:Hey, any chances to post pics of your plastics? Im trying to refurb my t61 and im going to use some chemicals which i use for cars plastics and waxing but, hopefully ill get back to you over the weekend when i wil b doing my t61

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I'll probably post a new thread which consists of a semi-guide if I decide to do this with my T60.

Medessec wrote:I'd probably be down to try that at some point.

I'd rather do it to some horribly worn out Thinkpad plastics, with palmrest shine and all the rest. Sand it down, then coat it with a flat black, or a glossy black better yet. That'd be a very interesting looking Thinkpad. What you can do with a T60 15", is get an R60 15" 4:3 lid, which is flat plastic instead of the nice rubberized finish. I'd hate to lay waste to the awesome rubberized coat on a T-series lid... so you can use an R-series lid instead to paint.

Another thing I've found recently is this thing called "Plasti-Dip", which is a spray paint that you can spray on like any other paint and it produces a matte solid color finish, but it's a sort of rubber-consistency material, and you can peel it off if you don't like it. People have been using it to paint cars without harming the original paint.

Do you think powder-coating the rubberized lid and palm rest of the T60 wouldn't work?

Marmalade · #10 Post by **Marmalade** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 6:54 pm

I heard powder-coating is pretty hot ( 400*C ?), does anyone know anything about plastic temperatures, melting points, the kind of plastic used in the thinkpads, anything like that?

I think i'll give an old thinkpad I'm not using a test-run, i'll sand the plastic down, use a grey adhesive primer, then matte black spray over the top. I'll do this to all the plastic and metal chassis, with tape over the essentials and the rubberised lid. I'll post a thread about it when I do it but I probably wont for a few months.

EvoT61 · #11 Post by **EvoT61** » Thu Apr 10, 2014 7:08 pm

Dont forget that powder coating thickens your plastics. Now with sanding... u need to use very fine sandpaper im not talking about 3000 grit im talking about 12000+ grit (3m) does it . Why so fine? U will need to leave no scratches or not visible by eye scratches coz paint will not cover it paint will sit in it . Best thing would b wrap it , it takes some practise over edges and u need make holes where speakers are. Show us pictures and will b easer to tell what to do

ps if u use spray paint with clear coat ...its easy to make look it nice if mate paint its hard.

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