On Wed, 03 Jun 2015 22:19:07 -0700, mike wrote:

I have an old MacBook aluminum laptop that got dropped on a corner.
I'd like to beat the dent out of it so the lid will close properly.
It's some kind of drawn aluminum can...I think...
Model number suggests it's not the titanium model.

Here's what it looks like.

http://i.imgur.com/ApOjfl4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/yRQFVR1.jpg

Hope the image links work.

I can, with considerable difficulty, remove the guts and the
casting around the battery hole.
But there are still some brackets welded to the aluminum
on both sides of the corner.

I can fabricate some wooden forms to recreate the corner.
First question is, "should I try to press it into shape,
or ballistically deform it with a hammer?"

Other suggestions?

It's not worth spending any money to do this.
It's just a learning opportunity.
I just recently made a similar repair to my iPad. I dropped it and the
corner deformed to the point that the glass broke. Anyway, I took
everything apart to replace the glass and used a small tool I made
from a small flat blade screwdriver to pound the corner back out. I
rounded the end of the screwdriver blade, which was about 3/16" wide,
such that the end is now a section of a thin disc. The radius of this
disc section is slightly less than the radius of the corner. I then
braced the aluminum case with some resilient material and made several
taps on the handle end of the screwdriver while the tool was engaged
with the work. I thought, before opening it up, that the iPad case
was drawn or stamped aluminum but it is actually machined, there are
cutter marks visible in many places and even some chatter marks. You
want the aluminum to move every time you hit the screwdriver, too
light a hit will start to harden the metal and it may crack. I used a
small ball pein hammer that Starret sells which has a magnifying lens
in the hammer head, it was the perfect weight. But any small hammer
will do. The trick is to always move the metal with each hit and to
complete the job with as few hits as possible.
Eric