Scraped off all flaking paint from side molding

[Jerry Krinock]

Here is a link to two pictures of a Titanium powerbook with the paint
purposely scraped off the platic side molding.

http://dearbrad.home.mindspring.com/TiBlack/

Note that I did not scrape off the paint on the strip between the keyboard
and the screen, since it was still good there, and this would have been
extra work.  Instead, I cut 45-degree mitre corners up there.

I did most of the work with a sharp-cornered piece of stainless steel.  The
ideal tool might be a sharp wood chisel, about as wide as the molding strip.
You want something very sharp and flat, so you can scrape it to a smooth
finish. You will find yourself actually scraping into some of the plastic.
This seems to be OK.  Also, a narrower tool or a very small, fine triangular
file is handy for drawing a smooth line around the connectors, optical drive
slot and PC card slots.

The two rectangular self-stick rubber bumpers on the corners (hard to see,
because they are black) are temporary, until I get Wildeepz from
Devdepot.com.  Others on this list have recommended 3M "bumpons" from a
store such as Home Depot, 3M product number is SJ5302SPCL.

If you look carefully, you'll see a few flakes still remaining.  You're
looking at maybe 40 minutes' worth of work.  I could probably work on it for
another 20 minutes if I wanted it to look better.

Be careful not to slip and scratch the titanium parts.  I recommend masking
it off with some tough cardboard or plastic, and/or removing the bottom
cover (remove the battery and all those screws on the bottom with the proper
torx-head screwdriver) before beginning to scrape.

I also recommend periodically wiping away the dust with a wet cloth.  It
seemed to irritate my throat a little at one point.  I hope that paint is
not too toxic.  But if it is there are already a lot of "flaky" powerbook
owners out there with lung cancer!