Re: refinishing cases

[a2aviator@gmail.com]

> One could argue that all the unpainted, but textured, IIe and III
> cases should have been originally painted... as the earlier cases were
> with better results.   Non-painting was apparently a profit boosting
> measure.

Here's and unpainted II case - though it has the cassette port sticker
attached,it's not painted - and it's a smooth texture.  The paint does
not offer a finish as shiny as the injected plastic.

http://www.apple2.org/images/Cases/index.html

Apple prototypes tended to be smooth, not textured, as texturing was
added when all the milling was done on the molds, mostly to hide
milling marks - but also to take away the shine, and "cheap" look of
the finished product. The ][/][ Plus and original //e had such nice
corners, rounding, etc. Where as the injection molded ones were sharp
and 'cheap' feeling.

But with the intensity in manufacturing picking up, and moving
production to Singapore, it only made sense to go with injection
molding so they could color pigment and produce in one step. Otherwise
handling finished painted parts also requires a lot of extra handling,
packaging, etc - that you don't have to worry about in a production
environment with pigmented injected parts. The latter can be stacked
with just a paper between them, handled briskly without worrying about
blemishing them, and what not.

Which in the end, makes these "painted" Apple /// parts exactly that,
painted parts. The texture does not show as well as it should in those
pictures on eBay, either. It doesn't look quite 'right', color-wise,
though this could be imagery voodoo, too. I also have to wonder about
the "original vendor" statement, without saying which one- and for
something nearly 30 years old thats not even composed of the same
surface. Painting over a textured surface smooths it out, or it's not
really painted all that well.

If this machine bumps against another Apple ///, it's most likely
going to 'dent' the paint, and perhaps push or even chip it off, too.

I would not accept it myself as a vintage machine, and could certainly
take my paint color numbers there and get more made, and paint some
myself for a whole lot less.

...as for UV light causing the yellowing issue in the beginning, it is
really interesting, I have some equipment that has not seen any light
for quite a few years, 10+ and was not yellow when it went into the
stash. The stuff, some of which, are horribly yellowed now.

Soon I'll be able to get these out again and have better images.

The other is a //e injected case labeled "1st tryout" with notes on it
for flowing problems in the mold.

> The snow white cases, on the other hand, would look gross painted.

I have *never* seen a painted Apple product case that looked any good,
after market painted that is.

FWIW, these painted parts do look very nice from that regard only,
however they still look painted.

As for lazy pasted URLs, to me it's a courtesy thing, to post a
useable URL - and for some reason, most eBay links just do not work
after being pasted somewhere. It's not spaces, it's some of the
characters used tend to mess with the most common bayesian filtering
used to parse out links.