I have a 2020 M1 MBA along with my new FW laptop. There are a plethora of options for Macs but very slim to none for the FW. I have real stone skins on the MBA so I don’t have to be too gentle with it. The stone has a dark slate like appearance and the natural roughness of real stone. No luck finding anything like that for the FW which is a shame, it’s my perfect unicorn upgradeable forever machine. The vinyl stickers are not an option for me, not putting that on my real aluminum FW. As a stopgap, I had a real leather portfolio case made to fit from Etsy for about $50+ It looks nice, but I have to be careful about the ventilation on the bottom. The M1 Mac has no such issue…
Removing the magnets is tough. I have managed to get the bottom part powder coated but have not rebuilt yet. I will attempt rebuild after I get some pads
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Do you have some pictures to show us? I for one would be interested to see what is possible…
That looks really good! Are you planning on coating the expansion ports and dGPU module?
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@taeyeon Depending on the type of anodising it provides a very good protection. Hard anodising is generally as hard as glass so makes an aluminium item a lot more scratch resistant. However it doesn’t lend itself to colour dying very well as it tends to darken the metal oxide layer meaning most places only offer black hard anodising.
@rom4ster that looks great, I look forward to seeing the completed item. I started a thread to see if anyone was going to polish their FW16 but there was no takers 
Yes i may be able to order parts from scratch for expansion cards. DGPU we will see what we can do. I have yet to even look at it. Currently im focused on the top cover and making a video about this first part. That will be the Project Black.Work official debut.
That is a terrible argument for not annodizing. If you want something in life dont let others tell you no. Just get what you want. I respect framework’s reasoning but I will not be treating their views as gospel, I encourage us all to do the same. We have to band together and do whatever it takes.
@Jimsiss I wanted to annodize but its most likely to kill the magnets, while powdercoating can leave some alive according to my minimal research. Honestly though I am new to all of this so if there is information im missing please tell me as annodizing is by far the best way.
I’ve done some anodising on aluminium and Titanium but never anything with magnets fitted. I suppose the voltages and current involved could kill the magnetism in the magnets.
I’m not so familiar with powder coating, I believe the heat used to bake the coating on is relatively low so might not kill the magnets (heat kills magnetism).
I assume the magnets are glued in? In which case you’d need to try something to either heat up or dissolve the glue.
I did acomplish removal of 2 … its not easy. I am not good at this so the community could perhaps help with methodology. I tried my heat gun but it did not work. I tried dipping in 99% alcohol and I was able to rip the front 2 magnets out. They were broken but that is no concern as the glue will hold them back together.
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woah that look sick
too dark for me, but Mmmmm.
Yeah the magnets are epoxied. You can try alcohol, but they probably wont do much either.
I’d like to have my Framework (that I will buy in the future) Type III hard anodized. That treatment is exceptionally tough. At the time, at the metal finishing shop, I didn’t choose any color for the anodizing and it came out a nice light beige tone.
But seeing how difficult it is to strip the laptop down for prep, I won’t bother. Heating up the magnets enough to remove them would weaken their magnetism; they are probably epoxied in and have to be pried out.
Ok so if you just care about annodizing you know it comes that way from the factory right? Unless you want a different color. Powder coating may work for you instead.
I figure they’re using Type II anodizing, not Type III (more durable and much rarer in electronics).
Type III is deeper/darker colored with the same dye and is really, really scratch/ding/scuff resistant. I have a few flashlights in both types, and the Type III just totally rocks in terms of durability and looking new for a long time.
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Hi I am working on a video soon. In the meantime MASSIVE W for framework.
Video out.
Hi,
This is more a question, I don’t know the answer.
On my FW, the case gets warm so I assume it’s acting like a large heat sink.
If you anodized or skin it, will it adversely affect it heat sink abilities?
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Skin, probably not. Annodizing absolutely would affect the cooling. I had to buy “pad paper” or whatever its called from hobby lobby to replace the inner padding that I tore off. This has a risk of failing so I would have to open it up probably once every 6 months to check on it. Though if someone does a very maticulous job of it, they could probably restore the original cooling. Either way the affect is not ultra huge because the heatsink itself is not part of the case but probably noticeable if not done right.
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Well, the internals gets hot, so it will naturally want to diffuse in all directions. Including through things like chassis.
Is the chassis designed with the intention of carrying heat, like on passive-cooled laptops
I don’t know the answer to that.
I imagine with the massive cooling solutions provided by Framework and Cooler Master, that it won’t have any significant impact on the actual thermals. Maybe not even a degree.
This is mostly correct from what I can gather. The issue is there are internal pads and stuff that need to be destroyed for annodizing or powder coating to be possible. You need to reconstruct it.
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