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Cleaning stained plastics and refinishing

I did a logic board and screen swap yesterday as the case was damaged and heavily stained.

I decided to go all mad professor and us the damaged case to test some cleaning products/techniques and used a pot of oven cleaner that we had lying around. This is basically a very fine grit paste used for cleaning metals etc which worked fine and didnt leave any real heavy abrasion marks. What it did do is obviously remove a fine layer which gives the plastic a nice shine.

Im wondering if anyone knows of a way/product/silver bullet that can restore the shine back to the plastic as this could give an old, tired case a new lease of life and make the Macbooks I'm refurbing look that little bit better presentation wise.

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Cleaning off the yellowing will be tough. You might think about going a different direction here, a few folks have used Rit Dye to color the Polycarbonate covers. Here's a vid on dying a yoyo YouTube: How to dye Polycarbonate Plastic. Here's a view of someones efforts with a MacBook MacBook dye job. After you do the dye I would recommend covering it with a clear urethane spray sealer.

If you have some skills you can use the masking tape to mask different areas off. A friend of mine did a black dye job across the cover with the area around the Apple logo a colorful beach ball.

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ooooh, never thought of that. Ive got plenty of old bits that can be experimented on so might give it a go. Not sure if we can get rit dye in the UK. I see some googling in my future.

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Something like THIS PRODUCT may be useful.

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Magic Eraser sponge works well on some really tough stains. Be sure to test a discrete area first.

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kelvin stephenson will be eternally grateful.
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