Coating on Voyager bezels?

[tppytel]

(03-29-2023 10:41 PM)Mark H. Shin Wrote:  It is fraught with high entropy!

Yeah... you were right about that, Mark. That light spotting was showing partly worn-away clear coat, and any friction on it just stripped off the rest. Of course, after 40+ years it's no surprise that the coating was weak. I can take it off just with a fingernail. I'll probably go ahead and strip off the rest - it comes off easily with airbrush cleaner I already have around. I may just strip it and leave it naked. But this sort of thing looks like it could be helpful too. And I do have a good quality airbrush available from my hobby game painting, I'm reasonably competent in using it, and I'm sure I can find some scrap metal around my basement to practice on.

In my defense, I'd note that I bought this 11C "as is/parts" from eBay and the seller indicated it didn't power on. He seems to have obtained it from the HP facility in Boise somehow (employee? HP garage sale? dunno...) and said it was a factory return that had sat in storage for decades. Cost me only $45. But I popped in some fresh batteries and it appears to work just fine. Passes the internal self-test and keyboard self-test. Works fine after sitting for a day or two. It needs a replacement battery door and its own set of batteries (I pulled both from my 10C to test), but it appears to be perfectly functional AFAICT. I inquired with the seller and he didn't seem to have tested too thoroughly. So apart from the bezel spotting (which I couldn't see in the eBay pics) I basically got a pristine 11C for relatively cheap. I was expecting to tear the unit apart and screw around with soldering or transferring a donor PCB into it. So I'm not feeling too invested or conservative about this unit. With a 10C, DM11L, Prime, 50g, and soon-to-arrive DM42, I hardly need another little RPN unit around anyway. I figure I'll clean it up as best I can and gift it to one of my twins, who do both appreciate geeky old things.