Mac SE Case Cleaning help

[abbub]

I searched and found a thread about cleaning up the 'regular use' dirt off of a compact mac, but my problem is a little yuckier. At some point in my Mac's life, some stuck (I'm guessing) a couple of those 'paper holder' things on both sides of the case. The only remnant of this outrage are four yellow rectangles of what remains of the adhesive. The stuff is super dry, and super bonded to the case. Short of sanding it off, I'm out of ideas for how to get rid of it.

I tried leaving a very wet washcloth on it for an extended period of time to see if that would 'rehydrate' the adhesive. no go.

I tried putting copious amounts of alcohol on it to see if that'd work. No go.

I tried bulk quantities of 'Goo Gone' to see if that'd have any effect, but had no love.

Has anyone encountered this and discovered a good solution for getting rid of it?

 

[Osgeld]

a plastic something with some edge (ie broken cd case or whatnot) and you can go at it like a paint scraper, you still can scratch the case plastic, but it takes a lot more do do so

course once you get those off you will have lovely little squares of different color on the side of the case

 

[abbub]

Thanks, I hadn't thought of brute force.

Once I get them off, I plan to try a batch of retrobrite, which I've been meaning to use on my SNES, anyway.

 

[Osgeld]

there is a few members that have been using a drugstore mix, myself included, its cheap and works pretty well as long as your not in a rush

search around for retrobright threads you cant miss them

 

[bbraun]

I've had mixed experiences with retr0bright, I urge caution. It does what is advertised, but my problems have largely revolved around inconsistent de-yellowing resulting in blotchiness or streaking.

The typical recipes generate a sort of gel material, which if not mixed uniformly will not produce uniform results. Same problem with both uniform application and uniform exposure to UV/sunlight. In the future, I plan to try leaving out the gelling agents and mixing up enough to completely submerge the target plastic.

YMMV of course, just my suggestions from the couple batches I've made.

 

[abbub]

Well, one advantage I have is about three extra cases from SNES systems, so I have a little bit of room for experimentation. The SE is the only compact Mac I have, so I'll probably attempt to master the process before I tackle it.

 

[Osgeld]

good news about the drugstore mix, I made almost 10 gallons of the liquid stuff for ~7 bucks

if you fill up the bucket of the mac so its displacing the liquid from inside its more than enough to do a compact mac, also being much milder it also is less prone to splotching issues, but plan on spending at least 8 hours in the light, and poking / stirring it every so often

It took my mustard yellow //c to almost brand new white over 9 hours, quite happy with it

 

[Byrd]

I'd scrape off the foamy things with a razor blade as much as you can, and put some boiling water on the remnant hard glue to soften it (even immerse in boiling water for a few minutes). Then apply some Goo Gone/eucalyptus oil onto the glue for several hours. Roll off with fingers, or a non-scratching kitchen scouring pad, impregnated with soap, if really stubborn. Then scrub all over with soap and water in the sink.

It'll likely never all come off, but good luck

JB

 

[CJ_Miller]

Since it appears "bonded", it seems likely that the plastics are similar enough that anything strong enough to soften the crud might also soften the case. So I recommend scraping also,if you remove the bulk of it, some residue will require less solvent and effort to remove.I would advise against using a razor though, even being careful it is easy to gouge the plastic. I recommend a scraper with a nice edge to it made of a softer plastic - or, better yet - wood. It would be difficult to scratch the case with a wood edge. Then once most of the stuff has been removed I would apply rubbing alcohol (90% or so) with a nylon scrubbing pad.

 

[abbub]

I used the scraping method last night, to some good effect. Unfortunately wood didn't work at all, and plastic only worked once I got it down a bit, so I had to use a metal paint scraper to *carefully* remove the top layer, and then as I got closer to the plastic, I was able to switch to the plastic scaper. Of course, it took me about an hour to remove two 1 inch squares of the stuff, so this is going to be a long process. As predicted, the case is unyellowed under the adhesive residue, so there's a batch of lumpybright in its future.

 

[CJ_Miller]

I used the scraping method last night, to some good effect. Unfortunately wood didn't work at all, and plastic only worked once I got it down a bit, so I had to use a metal paint scraper to *carefully* remove the top layer, and then as I got closer to the plastic, I was able to switch to the plastic scaper. Of course, it took me about an hour to remove two 1 inch squares of the stuff, so this is going to be a long process. As predicted, the case is unyellowed under the adhesive residue, so there's a batch of lumpybright in its future.

Lumpybright!

Just think, if your Mac was completely covered with the foamy things, it would have escaped the yellowing entirely!

 

[Osgeld]

Unfortunately wood didn't work at all

wood must be quite hard and have a decent edge which is sometimes difficult to source in small 1 time tools

as an example of "good wood" scraping, my dad is a piano tech, I work for a piano manufacture, at my last job a guy was talking about how the head gasket of his car was leaking, and how the "Internet" suggested a hard wood scraper

so I cut a scrap chunk of pinblock from my dads shop (pinblock is inches thick cross grain maple veneer, saturated in epoxy and pressure laminated engineered wood dating in design for at least 100 years used to hold the string tension on the tuning pins (screws) an average of 18 tons over the hundred + of (just over) quarter inch thick high tension steel pins)

that just held up to scraping a head gasket off of a ford taurus wagon

:O

course with a belt sander to renew that edge it would last 3 generations

 

[Paralel]

Interesting. I'll have to keep that material in mind. I've run into a few situations where that would be very useful.

 

[register]

An effective tool to remove small amounts of stuff (like dirt, lacquer, marking, glue) from damageable surfaces is an India rubber.

Some shops sell sets of erasers for exactly this purpose in different flavours (i.e. different in hardness and mixture of the compound). See it as a kind of extra soft grinder. You might do some experiments on the inside of the case before touching the visible surface. For example, try to apply different pressure while using the rubber, as the amount of heat produced by friction affects the result. You also can adjust the degree of matt or glossy finish by choice and usage of the rubber.

I prefer soft erasers without extra colour pigments.