Thinkpads Forum

Found a nice T60 15", but the previous owner was very careless with their painting project and the laptop has tiny speckles of spray paint all over the keyboard, bezel, and palmrest.

Any suggestions for paint thinners I can use that won't damage the case plastic? I think the keyboard is a lost cause (anything that removes paint is probably going to remove the letters), but I'd like to be able to salvage the bezel and palmrest. We're talking hundreds of tiny specks of sparkly paint, so scraping them off one by one is not viable.

Why not take the bezel and palmrest off and fully (spray-)paint those properly?
Make them e.g. a nice red to match the trackpoint colour.
Is probably a lot less work...

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:38 am

Why not take the bezel and palmrest off and fully (spray-)paint those properly?
Make them e.g. a nice red to match the trackpoint colour.
Is probably a lot less work...

Absolutely out of the question.

Colorware made good money repainting ThinkPads.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/colorware- ... ads-blush/

https://imgur.com/a/purple-ibm-lenovo-t ... -t60-QUhyj



Alternatively, you can try replacing the plastics.

An auto body shop may offer you options for otherwise repainting and refinishing the plastic. I dont know of any good way to remove old paint that doesn’t destroy the plastic. The car people know how to do it fast, efficiently, and correctly. Talk to them Imo

A rag and WD40. I got many PCs in where it looks like they left their laptop or desktop in the same room as where they painted. I used WD40 sprayed onto a rag to remove the paint dots. WD40 works on removing old stickers too.