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White iBook G3 TRANSPARENT Mod

I found on google images, the photo of a transparent ibook G3, so I decided to do it on mine.

I removed the paint using Ethanol (96% alcohol), dipped the pieces in a tray with the alcohol, and let it sit for 1 hour. Then I rubbed the pieces still immersed in the alcohol, and the paint came off easily without effort, without stains.

In the future I intend to paint the pieces with some colored stained varnish

IMG_20200418_202140651.jpg

 
I definitely recommend paint or stain or printed design or something here. It looks interesting as-is but isn't as dramatic as the clamshell without some of the shielding. I was going to totally de-shield a clamshell recently but then I discovered why I didn't the first time I attempted it many years ago: the lower shield doubles as a heat spreader. Kind of a bad idea to take that out. It's the same story with the iceBooks: the lower shield doubles as a heat spreader for the GPU and those things need all the help they can get. Of course the palm rest assembly is totally opaque on these too so there's no point in removing that shield.

When I decided to mod a beat-up 800MHz iceBook years ago, I also used iso alcohol to strip out the paint. Surprisingly the "Designed by Apple" etc text was unaffected. I then repainted it in powder blue. It turned out really well, including the battery cover, and subsequently became one of my most-used portable Macs. For fun I later did a 500MHz one in fluorescent orange (I call it "tangerine 2.0" of course) and a 700MHz unit a deep blue. Sadly some of the 800 and all of the 900MHz iBooks and all iBook G4s are totally opaque plastic. 

 
Yes I know, I did not remove the bottom shield. The chip does not generate excessive heat, it is possible to manufacture a thin copper heatsink in the future if I want to remove the shield.

I intend to paint it, but I am researching translucent paintings, I want it to be a little transparent, I am thinking of turning it into a bondiblue or something ...

Unfortunately I have bigger problems to solve first of all, the LCD polarizer was damaged, so I removed it. The screen was very beautiful without it, but I need to use the 3d glasses on my TV to see the screen lol, I'm looking for a new screen for him, or thinking about buying a piece of polarizer for him. Here in Brazil ibooks are a little more rare to find

 
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