Following up on my “Do It Yourself Laptop Wrist Rug” post, I’ve added protection for the other parts of my MacBook Pro.

As I stated in the picture’s Flickr page, there have been quite a few nice additions:

1. The wrist rugs now go all the way; flush to the edge of the keyboard.
2. Trackpad and button are now protected as well
3. Apple logo is now protected as well.

Images are level adjusted (and sharpened) to exaggerate the contrast of the texture and edges of the vinyl. On normal usage, they’re not that noticeable.

Again, doing the math:

1. The cheapest trackpad protector I’ve seen costs about 200 bucks. A typical set with button protector cost me about 600 bucks the last time.
2. There are wrist-rug/trackpad protector sets available for about 19-24 dollars (roughly around 1k pesos)
3. There are no available “logo protectors” to the best of my knowledge.

So as I said, you can spend up to a thousand bucks for a set. And if you’re unfortunate enough to have the top keyboard replaced, that’s another 1k right there for every new set you are forced to purchase.

How much did I spend for mine? 500 pesos (10 dollars) - and that’s only because the only vinyl available was in the form of a ridiculously large roll. If you’re lucky enough to find stocks of the smaller rolls, then you can go as low as 70 pesos (1 dollar).

With these rolls, you’ll have the freedom to make as much as you want, design them any way you want, and can also afford to make as many mistakes as you could.¹

I decided to share the template I made. It includes dimensions for everything you see in the picture. Only for the MBP 15.4” though. I created it in a different program so I’m not sure if the PDF will print actual size - I hope it does. I usually print directly to the vinyl, since the printer ink can easily be smudged out.

If there’s one advice I could give though, it would be this:

When you’re prepping up the vinyl sheet (for printing/cutting/whatever). Remember that it has been in a rolled-up state for quite a long time, so the vinyl itself is actually stretched in relation to the backing material (wax paper). If you want to flatten it properly and effectively, simply peel out the whole sheet that you plan to use² then set it face down, FLAT on a surface, then put the backing material back on. You’ll end up with a much flatter sheet to work with.

post updated on July 31, 2008 @ 10:16AM