Apple keyboard, alluminium differences

[LeandrodaFL]

I have an original apple keyboard, latest wireless model. It is made mostly of alluminium, however, the power button and the battery close on both sides are a different alluminium.

While the keyboard has a solid feel, the sides have some sort of reflective alluminium to it. Its not chromed as its not mirror reflective, but its does reflects some sort of light, making it really cool

Whats the official name for this type of finishing? And, wouldnt be great if the entire keyboard was made that way? It would look more fashion and less industrial to me

 

[stefmesman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Its brushed rvs i presume. Its too heavy for laptops etc.

 

[superman23]

i have this keyboard as well. I also have experience with metal finishing, specifically aluminum, so i may be able to give you the answer.

The keyboard appears to be blasted with plastic or glass beads, and then followed with a clear anodizing process - possibly a bright dip anodize which would help smooth the surface. Anodizing aluminum in clear will dull the color slightly and reduce reflectivity. The end caps (power button and battery door) are conductive, so they have not been anodized. They also have a lathe finish which is going to be brighter than a bead blasted finish. The reason Apple would not anodize those parts is so that the battery door can also be used as a battery terminal. However, untreated aluminum would quickly oxidize. So those parts are probably not actually aluminum. My guess is they are stainless steel. The laser engraving on the power button is black -- stainless engraves in black. Laser engraving on aluminum would be white.