Midnight M2 Air and black sharpie

[rj41978]

Waiting for my midnight air to get in but was wondering:

Has anyone tried using a black sharpie to color in the scuff marks on their ports yet? I’m just trying to see if this is harmful which I doubt to hide the these blemishes over the course of owning it. If a sharpie isn’t the way to go besides exchanging the color any other recommendations on how to overcome any potential scratches? Fingerprints won’t bother me with this color.

 

[Toratek]

Sharpies are for amateurs. People who know better use these, for a permanent blue-black chemical conversion coating on 6000 and 7000 series aluminum alloy.

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

www.amazon.com

 

[atownguy]

Sharpies are for amateurs. People who know better use these, for a permanent blue-black chemical conversion coating on 6000 and 7000 series aluminum alloy.

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

www.amazon.com

When you say “blue-black” is it actually because when applied it ends up having some blueish tint to it, or does it mostly just turn the aluminum black?

 

[Dealmans]

Yo can’t even see the ports, top and bottom could be the worry

 

[Sowelu]

Just know that black Sharpies dry with a reddish tone. If you're worried about scuffing, definitely look for another cover up.

 

[Toratek]

When you say “blue-black” is it actually because when applied it ends up having some blueish tint to it, or does it mostly just turn the aluminum black?

Depends on the alloy- most start out with a deep bluish tone and with additional time/temperature/applications, can get totally black. In the context of port scuffing, it will be invisible.

 

[rj41978]

Depends on the alloy- most start out with a deep bluish tone and with additional time/temperature/applications, can get totally black. In the context of port scuffing, it will be invisible.

I’d be interested to see samples of what this looks like using your recommended touch up pen. Do you have sample pictures of this product being used in the real world by chance not specifically the Air M2?

 

[jdb8167]

I’d be interested to see samples of what this looks like using your recommended touch up pen. Do you have sample pictures of this product being used in the real world by chance not specifically the Air M2?

If you go to the review section of the Amazon page there are some pictures. The rifle looked pretty good.

Edit: Sorry it was on the bottle of Aluminum Black not the pen that had the pictures.

Aluminum-Black

 

[Toratek]

If you go to the review section of the Amazon page there are some pictures. The rifle looked pretty good.

Edit: Sorry it was on the bottle of Aluminum Black not the pen that had the pictures.

Aluminum-Black

Yeah, unless you own firearms, the pen version is a lot more useful than the bottle and a q-tip. Here’s a macro shot of a dinged tactical flashlight switch. You can see where the metal was displaced, originally the ding and the rim around it was bright silver and now back to black. This repair has been riding in a pocket for six months.

 

[jdb8167]

Yeah, unless you own firearms, the pen version is a lot more useful than the bottle and a q-tip. (And I’m not about to post a bunch of gun photos here, given the audience.) Suffice it to say I have a lot of experience with this.

I have a Midnight M2 MacBook Air on the way so I appreciate the info. I'm not a gun person so I've never heard of this stuff but it looks like it might be useful at some point with the Midnight MBA.

 

[FrankySavvy]

For anyone looking for an easy fix for not scuffing the Midnight color and also getting rid of the pesky fingerprints I bought the following on Amazon.

1. USB-C Magnetic Adaptor - Prevents the constant pulling in and out of the USB-C port that causes the scuffs.

2. USB-C Black Caps - Covers up the ports to protect from damage, also will cover up any scratching that may occur in the future.

3. Apple Polishing Cloth - To keep those pesky finger prints off the laptop and keep it, looking its best.

 

[DD88]

https://imgur.com/a/eVDRSqi

People are wanting to use a sharpie to cover up a mark that’s about 0.0007 mm in size on a £2000 machine 🤣

 

[skids929]

Sharpie will rub right off.

 

[Toratek]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/easy-solutions-for-midnight-dirt-ding-issues.2352855/

 

[Jch1]

When you say “blue-black” is it actually because when applied it ends up having some blueish tint to it, or does it mostly just turn the aluminum black?

Hello, did you buy the pen?

 

[AIabacus]

Sharpies are for amateurs. People who know better use these, for a permanent blue-black chemical conversion coating on 6000 and 7000 series aluminum alloy.

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

Birchwood Casey Fast-Drying Fast-Acting Aluminum Black Metal Finish Touch-Up Pen for Restoring Scratched and Marred Areas

www.amazon.com

Update, just used this Birchwood Casey Pen today for a ding on the front of my M2 midnight; it was about the size of a pinhead, silver, very visible. The pen worked pretty well! I did two applications according to the instructions.

From straight on it's practically invisible, from an angle you can still see it but it does look better than before -- depends on how the light hits it. Color matching is solid, a little darker than before and more like the black apple logo than the midnight.

I think that if you just have silver scratches around ports, it would work even better. Most of the lasting visibility for me isn't from color, but indentation. But I'm definitely happy with how it turned out, I was thinking about getting a shell if it didn't work and will not be doing that now.

I didn't include pics because they didn't come out very accurate to what it looks like in person.