The TR painting project has begun

I have always been a modifying type of guy and since black seems to be my deeply passionate color, if I can’t buy something in black, quite often I paint it that way.

I did some research about painting laptops in general. I saw there are skins that can be placed on a laptop, although with very limited results. I know you can paint them, but with concern on taking the laptop apart and possibly having too thick of paint to put it back together. I am having a friend of mine in Seattle paint it for me since he works at a autobody shop.

In that light, I decided to search for another case to paint and not the one I am currently using for two reasons. One, I need to still use my laptop and two, if I put it together and the laptop doesn’t fit or something happens, I still have my original setup

Finally, the laptop will not be put back together until I get 3 more items:

1. Solid State Drive (SSD) of 60GB in size. This is a complete flash drive that uses a LOT less power, no moving parts and MUCH faster in processing.
2. BladeRunner’s modified heatsink. This is important for a cooler processor. The TR generates a lot of heat and I want one of these!
3. Bluetooth. I want to add this addition to my laptop since it didn’t come with it.

With that, I hope this project goes fairly well and I look forward to all comments and assistance. Thanks!

As you can see, this is the beginning. I bought the case pieces on Ebay and then bought a brand new keyboard since mine was missing some letters being rubbed off. I do not plan on painting the keyboard and will instead leave it unpainted, creating a two-tone paint scheme. There is a bag of screws and parts and finally, the smaller bag is the 802.11B/G upgrade since the TR2A only comes with 802.11B.

The metal screen on the right was pulled off the left one, which of course is the RAM cover on the underside of the laptop. It was held on by 3 strips of dual-sided sticky tape. I recommend using a heat gun to pull the metal vent on the right off. Otherwise, the aluminum bends easily. I didn’t want the vents to get clogged with paint.

This is the base plate. I didn’t have to do anything with this since I bought it this way, but I wanted to remove the battery clip and the battery lock.

To get these 2-piece clips out, you have to kind of push the two prongs together at the same time and the bottom part will come out while you can pull out the top piece.

The bottom piece was simply removing the rubber feet, made easier with a heat gun. I will also remove the stickers as well.

I removed the PCMCIA door flap and will keep it this color. The two flaps that pop out will get painted, but are left attached to the pieces. Mostly because the other piece was permanently attached as you can see with the arrow.

The small box is the power button and the big piece deals with the touchpad and some other things I am not sure of.

The small box is a “blocking piece” where you need to lift the tab below it up slightly and as with the arrows, slide upward to take this piece out.

The right click / left click board pulls right out and the arrows point to how the LED indicators are attached. This board is really flexible and can be slightly bowed or bent in the middle to take it out of the end tabs. This is attached with the same kind of double-sided glue strips. For obvious reasons, you can’t use a heat gun for this.

1. LED indicators
2. right click / left click
3. touchpad
4. power button
5. Sony memory stick slot

I haven’t removed these yet, but they look a little tricky. Any ideas?

Best of luck. That touchpad part looks dirty…eww.

Erik

Thanks Erik. Yea, it was pretty dirty when I removed it and I only realized it once I pulled it out.

Hi Samurai! Good luck on your painting project. Its good to see that there are still people out there who put so much time and effort into their TR. There are indeed new and faster subnotebooks available out there… but who needs them… we got out TRs

I guess you havent removed the silver VAIO letters from the backside of your screen housing yet. At least there is no picture of it.

However… I yoused a q-tip to get so called “nitro paint thinner” arround the silver letters. I gave it some time (10 minutes or so). After that I could easily lift up the silver letters using a small sewing needle. Nitro paint thinner wont harm these letters. It would just resolve the clue.

So we have someone on the board who made his TR blue. I made mine silver. You are making yours black. A few more and we can call ourselves the “united colors of benetton TR Gang”.

Forgot to ask…

since youre gonna use a solid state disc as harddisc… have you found one yet that would fit into the tr and will you be able to connect it to the ide without problems?

Hey silyb0y,

I LOVE my TR man! It is plenty fast enough for me and especially because I am always tweaking. I have no need to get a new unit

No, I haven’t started to remove the Sony logos yet and feel like they will be a slight challenge, but seems you have a process. This nitro paint thinner, is that what it is called? Do you have a brand name? Let me know so I can do this correctly.

That was funny - “united colors of benetton TR Gang”! We will see how many colors we can get

I am not sure about the SSD. I know they make 1.8” and are specifically designed for sub-notebooks, but short of that, it seems they should fit. I am not sure though. Any information would be appreciated.

Lastly, in the second to the last picture - do you know what that slot is for?

That slot you asked about… its located on the left side of the palmrest isnt it? If so its the Sony Magic Gate - memory card reader for Sony Memory Sticks.

Older Sony cameras come with that type of memory card. Newer Sony digital cameras use a smaller memory card but there is an adapter so you can also read the small ones in that Magic Gate. If you got a Sony digi cam that Magic Gate is very handy!

Ah… dont have any info on the SSD. I was hoping to get info from you

About the “Nitro paint thinner”. I actually dont know how you guys call it. Nitro paint thinner is how we call it over here (Ger). Many companies offer it. However. Once you resolved the clue under the letters youll be able to lift the letters very easily. Your friend from the body shop might know wich paint thinner to use. The letters are pretty thin so be carefull.

I see that there is some residue of clue on the cover of the RAM slot (2nd picture) left behind by the tape. I also used my paint thinner to resolve the clue here and remove it. So you might want to try your paint thinner here first. If it resolves the clue and makes it turn into somehting like gel without corroding the metal you may also use it for the silver VAIO letters.

Thanks silyb0y. I updated the picture with the numbers and removed the other. I am an idiot. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that! Thanks.

Ok, I will try some local removers like you mentioned. Good idea on trying it with the metal piece first!

Keep up the good work guys! I’d be interested in upgrading mine to SSD as well, but since they are so pricey right now I have to wait. I checked out the Sony Parts for 32 GB pricing and as usual they have an astronomical price tag attached to it - $1230.94 (I always wonder how they come up with those prices, as a mere screw can cost $14.97 there and one can buy it elsewhere for 5 cents) I am sure there are some adapters available now to make SSD work with our TRs.
Would not it be awesome to have a top on our TRs to look like the one that comes on X505SP with carbon fiber threads? I know I am just dreaming….
Stan

I decided today to do a little cleaning and take a few more things apart. The right click / left click buttons are what I wanted to tackle so here is the picture to show you the important parts. If you look at both arrows that point to either side of the flap just above the round “ball” looking things, that is where you have to pry this plastic piece up carefully. Do it right or wrong, both sound like you broke something. There is no way to tell if you are doing it right or not, you just have to hope. Pry near these areas to take the piece off two small posts. Use SMALL jeweler screwdrivers because if you use regular size, you might make an indentation on the palm rest side of the plastic. Once that part is off the posts, you will easily be able to move the tab in the upper left area under the opening. You will then have to lift up the “T” arm, but gently as to not break it.

Here is another angle to look at when pulling this piece out.

As you see on the left tab, both posts broke when I pried this out. On the right tab, both posts stayed without breaking. Also on the right tab, you can see the “T” arm was almost broken, but it was that way before I even began this. Super glue fixed that nice and sturdy as before. You can also see the right tab has some silver rubbed off. I was simply going to find perfect replacements but decided I will paint these too!

Hey Stan,

A new guy to the forum started a thread called “Sony TR with SSD future dream”. I suggested we make that the official thread for SSD information. Want to post that again there as it might be helpful?

Thanks for the support on the paint project!

Hi Secure Samurai. Its funny that it broke on one button but not on the other. However… to prevent these “noses” from breaking you could have heated up/melted the top of these “noses” with the tip of a solder iron.

When these “noses” melt you can pull the button out without breaking them. After painting is done you can put the button back on its position, melt the nose again. While the “nose” is kind of fluid/soft you can just tip on it with your finger to make the “nose” flat again so that they will hold the button.

English is not my first language as you can see. I still hope you guys know what I was trying to explain

I understood you just fine and thanks for the tips silyb0y! Sometimes I don’t think ahead or with other ideas to solve something I will probably just super glue them on when I put it back together.

Good advice for everyone else!

I broke several of these “noses” on plastic parts of my car. Thats why I know how they work

Ok, here are some more pictures. I am slowly plugging away at this. I really could send all of this stuff off for painting but I want to wait because if I do it now, I will become impatient for the other internal parts once I have all my nicely painted black pieces back

This is how I received the screen bezel. It practically was already apart for me.

These are the pieces I will remove.

This is the underside / internal side of the bezel.

This little piece is what helps hold the bottom rounded area of the bezel. It is pretty easy for you to snap this part off the other part of the bezel, just be gentle. The current bezel on my laptop is cracked almost completely across the weak point.

All the pieces are off. The black area is double sided sticky tape that was really strong. I didn’t bother using a heat gun.

I need to take the light cover and Sony symbol off.

Here are the two little stems you need to push through to the other side.

As you can see, there is a thin layer of double sided sticky tape. I left the clear plastic that illuminates the symbols in the bezel and will just cover those with tape. I don’t want to melt the plastic to remove this piece since it is permanently attached.

This piece is fairly flimsy, so be careful. The center point is not really attached so your focus is the other two. Once again, I broke these off on purpose because I will just super glue them back on.

You can see the broken stems. Also note the little pads are off that are located on either side of the motion eye camera.

I thought this piece was solid metal (thin), but it really isn’t. Because I pulled this off without heat, it curled! This is what covers the two small holes for the speakers.

These two pieces on either side of the motion eye camera are easy to take off.

The front side with them off.

The backside with the same material used for the speaker filters as they are here for the slits - I am assuming those slits are to help vent out heat.

Playing around with the logo These come off easy with a heat gun and needle, just like the Sony piece at the bottom of the LCD.

Without the silver.