Month: November 2008

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Waxing MacBook

I was playing D&D on Friday night over the Internet. I had my microphone close by and my headphones on to prevent feedback. I usually light a candle at my desk and reduce the light to create nice lighting to play by.

Somewhere around 12:30, I notices that my keyboard was a bit dirty. I shook it and saw that some pieces could use a little encouragement from the can of compressed air that I keep handy. I blew out the dust and began spraying my whole desk to banish all manner of dust and dirt. Then, a bit of the 1,1-Diflouroethane spilled out and a bit of that made contact with my candle flame.

Whoosh.

There be fire. A little bit, but I thought it was cool! So, I spent the next few minutes issuing controlled bursts of 1,1-Diflouroethane directly into the candle. On my last try, I stood back a bit and issued a heavy burst.

The fire was spectacular but as you non-pyromaniacs have already realized as you read this, I was bound for some trouble. A bit of the 1,1-Diflouroethane managed to sink into the pool of wax and when it went up it sent a spray of wax in every direction. On me, on my chair, my desk, my monitor, my keyboard, and on my black MacBook.

Crap.

I went to the bathroom and got a towel and started to clean things up. The wax came off pretty easily. The floor was a bit slippery now so I went and sprayed some cleaner on it and it soon became clean and lustery.

When I started to clean the wax off my MacBook, I noticed how good the clean sections looked. I looked over at the candle (now extinguished) and decided to dip my towel into the still-soft wax. For the next five minutes, I rubbed in the wax and then wiped it off, much like I would do to my car.

Holy minty fresh MacBook Batman! My MacBook was completely free of the what I thought was permanent dullness of age. It was black again. Smooth. Dirty was gone. Scratches were all but invisible. The machine looks almost new.

I had tried regular cleaner before, but I was never able to achieve this kind of brilliant new-looking surface. The black MacBook seemed to have the ideal material for this procedure and I imagine ThinkPads would also benefit from a little wax. I’m not sure about aluminum MacBook Pro’s, though. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Now, I just have to make sure my kids don’t figure out the compressed air thing. The apple will not likely fall far from the tree.