Database Users

Polishing the cover to mirror-like finish

Well, after being infected with this uncurable decease called "Polish-o-mania" a while back, I just decided that the matte finish of my S100 cover wasn't just enough for me.
Also, the fact that my friend recently polished his SE T610 cover probably didn't make me NOT want to polish it...
Now, since I'm quite new into this polishing-thingy, I don't have the stuff at home to make it really, really nice, but I'm gonna go shopping tomorrow for some better polishing fluids.
Now, this is my equipment:
-A plastic bucket with water.
-An eraser
-Some sheets of grinding paper (P320, P800, P1200, P2000, waterproof)
-A tube with metalpolish (this is now what is limiting my finish...) and a piece of cloth.
And for the procedure: (remeber to use a lot of water and clean the cover during!)
-Take some 320 grain paper, wrap it around the eraser, and start grinding away. Go in one direction (ex. up and down along the back cover) until you've grinded away all of the matte surface.
-Then you go up a little (i did go to 800 grain) in grinding paper, and start to grind some more, but in a 90 degree angle to what you just grinded. And when you've grinded off all of the scratches from the previous sanding, go up in paper and rotate 90 degrees again.
-When I had grinded it down with 2000 paper, I took the metalpolish, and started rubbing away. And after rubbing a little, I took a clean cloth, and wiped it off.
Voila! A nice, shiny, reflective batterycover!
Now, the problem is that I want the fron cover as shiny, but since I don't want to do it while mounted to the phone, I wonder if anyone could advise to how to remove the front cover?
I unscrewed the torx-screws (4) which held the phone together, but as I started to pull things apart, it seemed to me as if all the inner workings of the phone are attached to the front cover.
But if someone knows (I've tried googling and searching through forums about this...) IF you can separate the front cover from the rest of the phone, and HOW to do it, I would appreciate it greatly!
I will attach some pics, but they are of Nokia 7610 quality, and not at such a high finish as I want it. As I said earlier, I now need finer polishing-liquids... But I hope you get the idea!
(It is at least shiny enough to read a magazine in it's reflection...)
Cheers, and I hope someone can help me with dis-assemblying!

Cool to finally see some casemods being done. I've been thinking about painting mine somehow. I have a pretty nasty scratch in the original paint I'd like to cover.

Check this.
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=47359&view=findpost&p=299925
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mrbjtan/detail?.dir=2b3c&.dnm=8207.jpg&.src=ph
http://www.skinit.com/

Nice, but quite ugly designs

very nice... i think i will polish mine as well..... lots of scratchs

Wow.. Looks realy nice.. plz post more pictures when U polish it more..
Help on open the case ..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=18384&highlight=
Would love to se the SE t610 to .. plz mail me a picture of it..
palm_m505(at)hotmail.com
Thx ..

It looks like you have ground off the two little nubs on the bottom of the case that protect the case from scratches when it is laid down on the back cover. Did yours have these nubs to begin with?

What about the part above the battery hatch? It is made out of plastic, and presumably cannot be polished!

Does anyone know if that Vinyl Skin Wrap thing is available in the Uk or do any companies provide a mail order service for the XDA 2i?

Carlis said:
Wow.. Looks realy nice.. plz post more pictures when U polish it more..
Help on open the case ..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=18384&highlight=
Would love to se the SE t610 to .. plz mail me a picture of it..
palm_m505(at)hotmail.com
Thx ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but of course! Will try to find some better polisher today...
And about the T610, I will post pics of it as soon as I can. (Will try to get hold of a better camera too...)
And thanks alot on the document, will read it later on...
Matterhorn said:
It looks like you have ground off the two little nubs on the bottom of the case that protect the case from scratches when it is laid down on the back cover. Did yours have these nubs to begin with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I did grind of those nubs. I could've tried to go around them, but it would have taken forever, and I also very rarely lay the phone down anyway.
LeSkip said:
What about the part above the battery hatch? It is made out of plastic, and presumably cannot be polished!
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Click to collapse
Well, as you said, it is made out of plastic, so it can't be polished. But sending it to a chromer to have it chromed out shouldn't cost much since it is so small...

Where is the *.PDF file? to dissasembling the device.... And what is the situation right now?

sipdawg said:
Where is the *.PDF file? to dissasembling the device....
Click to expand...
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check this post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=18384&highlight=sound

don't like it awful! :?

Underworld said:
don't like it awful! :?
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Yeah, it's a bit of a love/hate-thing...
But my cover looked like s**t before (scratches!) and this is ALOT better...
And always nice if a girl needs a make-up mirror, "Wow! Always someone there when I'm in need!"

I like it verry much... But when is the front side polished?
After that i think i will do the same! It looks damn good!

im so damn wondering how that looks like with the front polished

how is it going maytey

Well, I'm a little lazy, and I don't have as much time on my hands as I would like to (work and other hobbies).
Maybe sometime this weekend, it all depends on how easily I can rip the front part off of the phone...
Will keep you posted.

well how is it pall?

Now, I feel like it is time for a small, small update...
Update!
Now, after going to a couple of stores that I thought would have some better polisher, I still havent found any. So, no better polish yet.
And since I haven't had the time I would like on my hands, I haven't polished the front yet either.
"So, what exactly can he be updating?" you might ask yourselves?
Well, I now have better pictures of it, taken with a REAL camera! (Wow!)
Here you are, might give a better look at things...
(Will try to snap some of my friends T610 tonight too... Will see if I have the time to polish the front this weekend...)
Cheers!

Paint a Wizard, hide my scratches and blemishes

I wanna paint my Wizard. It's got more wear than a 50-year old prostitute. Can anyone give me some tips as to protecting the screen, buttons, and camera lens as well as using a certain kind of paint? Thanks.

I have also been thinking of doing the same and downloaded the Wizard Service guide thinking I would disassemble, paint and then reassemble. I did this in particular because I also hoped to fix the slider which has become loose and the wizard opens on its own and sometimes gets stuck when shifting between potrait and landscape. But the process is just too much to handle and will need heavy studying of the manual.

Befor you should know how to put your mobile in parts. It's explain on this website :
http://www.ce4you.cz/articles/detail.asp?a=263
good luck

Well I was just thinking using masking tape and spray paint of some kind; no dissassembly required. But fixing your slider problem... maybe should be put in a separate thread.
And yeah... these parts are very delicate. I wouldn't want to dissassemble this thing.

I really want to paint my Wizard too, I was thinking about painting the whole thing black. I'm not afraid of taking the device apart, but I have doubts about the paint. Isn't it just gonna fall off like the oruiginal paint did? What paint are you going to use? Please update this thread if u succeed and tell us how did you do it (and what paint did you use)

Search for 'White Wizard'

qntos said:
I really want to paint my Wizard too, I was thinking about painting the whole thing black. I'm not afraid of taking the device apart, but I have doubts about the paint. Isn't it just gonna fall off like the oruiginal paint did? What paint are you going to use? Please update this thread if u succeed and tell us how did you do it (and what paint did you use)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think that if you painted then put a shieldzone on it would protect your new paint nicely. Any thoughts?

there was a previous thread in the upgrading section, i think it was "badbert" who posted a ford GT look on his wizard, and he even included tips, how and what he used
opps sorry, it was the clear case he painted, but check it out
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=306568&highlight=badbert

lol - without disassemble the wizard will look like a piece of sh**. In addition you have to know something about painting. Its not like just spray with a cheap can of paint. After two weeks the painting will be of.
I know that because i've painted a lot of stuff (like cars, PC's and so on)

I started off with an Audiovox SMT 5600 and bought a dummy phone on Ebay for $8.00. Took apart both and used the dummy phone's casing and it turned my Audiovox into a brand new phone.
Maybe you could find a dummy Wizard or a Wizard with a broken screen on the Cheap and use the casing to bring yours back to snuff?

Now I have the HTC TMO Wing -- You can buy the battery cover back door on Ebay for around $10.00. I bought two of em. So now when I **** up the finish - just replace the door which essentially half the phone.

herald exterior mod

custom paint:
Tamiya candy lime green and gun metal
call button modification:
end and send buttons shaved (cuz I hate answering my phone before it is even out of my holster)
sorry it is not a software mod, but this is more my style. (and I did update the rom with touchflo, but so has everyone else here!)
here are some pics:

How did you do that? Is it scratch friendly?

Many thanks to Neptune for the service manual on the herald. Just followed the directions and removed all the case parts. (remove nothing more)
Then I sanded the case to take the top layer of film off the "soft touch" paint. ( i did not remove all the "Soft touch" paint, just the top layer. This allows the new paint to adhere better)
I then applied the primer, base coat of gun metal, and final coats of lime green. Then I put a couple coats of clear coat.
As for scratch resistance. The clear coat is the key, not only does it make the paint look great, but it is harder than the paint itself. It is the protection.
I would highly recommend only using the Tamiya brand paint. It is very compatible with the surfaces, is very easy to use, and comes in great colors.
-j
here is the link from Neptune for the service manual:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=50512&d=1189723845

how did u shave the buttons. n what paint n procedure did u use for the buttons

In one word: Awesome!
I was thinking to repaint my Herald long time. And making some extra LED's wich i love
oh well.. sweat dreams

I have been wanting to paint my wing for a long time now. I Purchased a broken wing off e-bay because i needed the speaker phone from it and the phone was in much better shape than mine. After seeing this post, i was inspired to paint mine. I went with metallic blue front and back and left everything else the same. (including the buttons) I Put two coats of color and 3 coats of clear. my buttons almost didn't fit lol. I even wet sanded it with 2000 grit sand paper and gave it a nice buff and glaze job. Ill post some pictures as soon as i find my cable for my camera.
I would like to thank gpster for the inspiration and the link to the service manual. With out either, i would have the same looking wing as everyone else lol

gpster, the phone looks amazing! Good job!
Ricky, can't wait to see some pics. Your description of the colors sound really nice!

Very nice... I am jealous!!!

Black Sprint Hero :)

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible if you break your phone doing this. I am not telling anyone to do this, I am just sharing how I did it. If anyone tries it, post up your results!
Read through all of the steps, and if anything seems too difficult for you, do not try this. There is a good chance you will break something if you aren't completely confident.
Hey guys, I just wanted to share how I dyed my phone black (and people wanted to know lol). This is very dangerous, and this is no task AT ALL for the faint hearted. It is very easy to BREAK your phone doing this. In fact, to do one part you have to technically break the phone (hence why only experts should try this) but it will still work fine. Anyways, check out the pics attached!
MAD Props to xweaponx over at PPCGeeks for being the first (I believe) to try using RIT dye on their phones (the Touch Pro battery door).
Steps:
Pre-Step: Go to the nearest convienience store and pick up some RIT dye. It can be the powder or concentrate stuff, doesn't matter.
1. Take your phone completely apart. Follow this great tutorial here: http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/22036-sprint-htc-hero-disassembly-diy.html When you get to the trackball, remember which way to put it in, cause if you don't put it in the right way, you will start freaking out cause none of the panel buttons will reach the mainboard and they won't work!
2. Once you get to the end, this is the part where you have to be careful! You need to pull the screen off. This is very VERY dangerous too. You have to use an iPod pry tool or maybe a guitar pick or something plastic and thin. This screen is very tightly glued to the body, so this is going to be hard. GO SLOW. No need to risk breaking your glass screen
3. Once the screen is out, there are two more things you have to do. Use a tiny flathead screwdriver to pop out the earpiece. MAKE SURE: you know which way the earpiece is in, because when you re assemble it, you have to put it in the right way or you will have no sound out of the earpiece which can be very scary haha. Once that is out, take that same screwdriver to actually break off the End and Send buttons (right where they are connected to the body). If you don't feel comfortable doing this, don't try this at all, because if you don't do this step, the buttons will curl and not fit in the holes at all.
4. Now, you're phone should be completely apart. Make sure there is still nothing electronic on the housing of the phone.
5. Nows the fun part! Boil a pot of water. Once it is boiling, turn the heat slightly down to just under a boil, and pour some RIT dye of the color of your choice into the water. Use more dye for a more intense color, less for a more subtle change. Make sure you stir it up well.
6. Now, put the two housing pieces (the facial housing, and the battery cover) into the hot but not boiling water. Stir gently for about 10-20 minutes, checking on the color like an Easter egg.
7. Once your desired color is achieved, take out the pieces, and quickly run them under luke warm water, and gradually make the water colder. Keep rinsing until the rinse off water is completely clear. If you stop too early you might have a color bleeding problem (onto your hands) later. Use something like a paper towel or tissue to sop up the last bit of the dye so you do not have that color bleeding problem later. Let the pieces dry for a while.
8. Once the pieces are completely dry, put the phone back together using the guide I liked in step one (follow in reverse obviously ). Make sure you put the earpiece in the correct way like mentioned above.
9. If you followed everything, you should have a sweet looking original phone!
With all of this said, only do this if you feel like you can. And remember that disclaimer up at the top. Not my fault if you break it! If you do try this, post up your results! I wanna see all the colors anyone tries, or even if you did it black.

great tutorial, thanks! Looks nice

never thought of using dye, Great idea!

morbidpete said:
never thought of using dye, Great idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got the original idea from xweaponx over at PPCGeeks when he did it to his touch pro battery door. Mad props to him for coming up with this great idea!

a darker, Hunter Green would look really nice as well

coldsweat said:
a darker, Hunter Green would look really nice as well
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Click to collapse
I agree! I was also thinking a nice darker blue would look pretty good too. If anyone else wants to try this, I really wanna see what kinda colors they pick

One thing to add: When you're done and they're dry, rub them for a few minutes with a tissue, to get the excess color off so it doesn't stain your hands/face/clothes as you use the phone. learned that the hard way with my TP.

entropism said:
One thing to add: When you're done and they're dry, rub them for a few minutes with a tissue, to get the excess color off so it doesn't stain your hands/face/clothes as you use the phone. learned that the hard way with my TP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll add that into the end of the tutorial!

Thats a great idea! I might try to die mine a dark blue
But how much would the dye cost, and where can I get a 'T-6 Torx' screwdriver

You can get the screwdrivers at any hardware store. A T4, 5 and 6 will have you set for damn near any cell phone out.
The dye is $2/per pack at Walmart, make sure you get the powdered and not the liquid. 1 pack will easily fill a 3 quart pot and dye as many backs as you need.
One thing about dark colors: Do NOT buy them, because your backs will come out nearly black. If you buy the royal blue and let it sit in the dye longer, you'll get navy-ish, kind of dark purple. Same with red to maroon, emerald to forest, etc.
Be VERY careful as the housing WILL curl up on you if you don't pay attention. Use rubber coated tongs and stir the pot lightly and constantly.

entropism said:
You can get the screwdrivers at any hardware store. A T4, 5 and 6 will have you set for damn near any cell phone out.
The dye is $2/per pack at Walmart, make sure you get the powdered and not the liquid. 1 pack will easily fill a 3 quart pot and dye as many backs as you need.
One thing about dark colors: Do NOT buy them, because your backs will come out nearly black. If you buy the royal blue and let it sit in the dye longer, you'll get navy-ish, kind of dark purple. Same with red to maroon, emerald to forest, etc.
Be VERY careful as the housing WILL curl up on you if you don't pay attention. Use rubber coated tongs and stir the pot lightly and constantly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you prevent this? and i'm assuming this breaks your warranty, because it is pretty clear that the phone was dyed.

lol, yeah, say goodbye to your warranty. As to how you prevent it: keep the heat low, for one. Bring it to a low boil, then put the heat on the very lowest setting you can. You don't want this bubbling at all. Heck, you can do this easily with the water just barely steaming hot. Stir constantly, and pull it out of the water to check the color and to see if it's starting to warp.

mine is black too, all i had to do was buy a $5 gel cover off ebay. looks great and protects my phone. somedays i'm feeling grey so i remove the gel cover and trust gadget guard's full skin and invisible shield's front protection.
yeah i'm picky like that.

lol i did this back in the day to my tp and i had a purple battery cover for a while till i got my hero, tehehe

Hmm, just brainstorming here, but do you with there might be a way to leave part of the phone undyed? Like with a wax crayon or something like that. Wax crayon is probably not realistic but you get my point.

Vrekk, it's possible. I remember in the TP thread, someone was using vinyl adhesive stickers to keep the dye off their phones, leaving it the stock color when they removed it. Looked tacky, IMHO, but it's certainly possible.

entropism said:
You can get the screwdrivers at any hardware store. A T4, 5 and 6 will have you set for damn near any cell phone out.
The dye is $2/per pack at Walmart, make sure you get the powdered and not the liquid. 1 pack will easily fill a 3 quart pot and dye as many backs as you need.
One thing about dark colors: Do NOT buy them, because your backs will come out nearly black. If you buy the royal blue and let it sit in the dye longer, you'll get navy-ish, kind of dark purple. Same with red to maroon, emerald to forest, etc.
Be VERY careful as the housing WILL curl up on you if you don't pay attention. Use rubber coated tongs and stir the pot lightly and constantly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use the dark colors just fine, you just need to use less dye. The pack is meant for gallons of water, not a 3 quart pot. For example, if you buy the navy blue back, if you put 1/4th of the package in a 3 quart pot, you will get a nice navy (maybe a little lighter) blue.
I literally made dozens of touch pro backs with this method, with pretty much any color you could think of. You can mix and match dyes to get different colors as well. Obviously you only get one shot at it with your phone, so find some old touch pro backs or something and do it with that first.
For best results on removing the "glass" part of the housing, use a hair dryer (on low or medium, high will probably melt your case) to warm up the glue. I just removed one and it took about 15 seconds with no damage, becauase the glue was nice and warm and just came apart.

fyi...it will eventually wear off. it did on my tpro battery door.

zikronix said:
fyi...it will eventually wear off. it did on my tpro battery door.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My diamond wore off as well, but if i remember correctly it was months later.

You don't even need to remove the "glass". Unless you have scratches on it, it just won't dye, can't adhere to that plastic.

Tribute to XDA Developers

Well it's me again.
This time, i had some spare time and thought of making something i wanted to do for some time ago. It's my first time doing this (although i'm familiar with the process since i use it for PCB making) but i thought i should give it a try. And in great recognition of what the XDA community enabled us - the users - to do with our phones, i wanted to brand my phone's battery cover with the XDA logo next to the andoid logo, the thing (os) that xda developers made possible to us. Ah and in the xda spirit, i thought it would be kind of cool to handcraft the design of that battery cover.
Here's the story of today's afternoon for me
...and possibly a guide for you, daring folks around there who just happen to have a spare scratched and ugly looking battery cover like i did
So.. i had this hd2 battery cover, from a dead HD2 that i have (poor fellow died during testing of the cpu bga problems and my tries to find a fix for them). The battery cover was in really bad shape, scratched, the finish was torn out.. looked like... crap.
I saw a topic around here about how to make your battery cover to a chrome-like finish by using some sandpaper and stuff like that. I think the idea is good, but the result is well... too shiny for my taste...and i want a "custom made one". I also wanted to have the xda and android logos onto the battery cover but i could not afford some laser etching on it, i can't even find one shop to do this here were i live in Romania. So here's how i did it.
1. I opted for a brushed metal design. A clear look design is just to shiny for my taste and... well, i guess it scratches more easily. So, using sandpaper, i've begun clearing away the original paint on the battery cover. When i was done with that, i begun sanding in only one direction and in straight line, in order to have a more symmetrical brushed metal look.
After some time sanding and after changing the sandpaper roughness to more finer ones, here's how it looked. Note that this is not the final design.
2. Next i needed some sort of logo - the stuff i'll be putting on the battery cover. I googled around, and got the xda text and android logo. I've edited them to a black&white design (you'll see later why..) and it looked like this.
3. I mirrored the logo, using irfan view and selecting horizontal flip from the image dropdown menu. You'll also see why. Then I've printed the logo onto a glossy a4 paper sheet, like the ones used for foto printing. I've used a laser printer, this is really necessary, inkjet ones won't work for what i'm about to do. You'll also see why
4. I draw some guiding lines for helping me center the image once i place the battery cover over it. Here's how i did.
5. I now placed the battery cover over the sheet of paper, using the lines i already drawn as a template to help me center it. As the image is mirrored, as you may guess, i will be transferring the logo from the paper to the metal surface and once there, it will look normal (not mirrored). More on that later. I also secured the paper to the battery cover with some electrical tape. Don't get upset, you'll also see why.
6. Well, i did use some fair amount of electrical tape to secure that piece of paper to the metallic surface. It needs to be as stretched as possible, not able to move around.
7. I used a smoothing iron (i don't know the exact word in english, aah, that thing you use to smooth out clothes) to heat up and press the piece of paper to the metallic surface. I pressed the iron and move it around the logo zone for about 15 minutes, at maximum temperature. Because the battery cover is not exactly flat, i was careful to follow the contour in order to leave no metal part unheated.
8. I then placed the heated battery cover with the paper on it, under a jet of cold water. I left it under the water for 15 minutes. This is important. The water must be cold, never use hot water.
9. I carefully begun peeling of the paper from the metallic part.
10. I peeled of almost all the paper, one thin layer still remained over the logo area. Don't rush things, place it under a water jet for yet another 5 minutes.
11. Ahh, there it is, the thing starts to look like something, ain't it
12. In the photo above, you can see that the toner from the paper was transferred to the metallic piece. That's why you need a laser printer, because of this property of it's toner. And also that's why you needed to heat it up with the iron. In fact, you're simulating what the laser printer does every time when you print something. Well, you done it on a curved metal piece.
In this last picture you'll also see that the logo isn't exactly 100% black, there are some grey or white spots on it. That's residual paper left over it. If you carefully rub it with your finger or a fine brush, you can actually remove it if you insist. You'll get a pure black logo (or other color if you wish and if you have a color laser printer available). At this stage you could also stop, if you like a black/color logo. You could then apply some lacquer, the spray-able variety to preserve the surface from scratches. I chose another design so i will go on with some other steps from here.
13. If you want something different, you may skip rubbing the logo to remove all the paper. If the logo looks as in the above picture, you're good to go for the next step. Remove the metallic piece from the jet of water and let it dry. If while it's wet you see that the black toner has gone away from some points, you'll need to use a little bit of paint to cover them out (you'll also see why). So if you see points where the toner is gone (after you removed the paper at the 9-10 steps) try to memorize where the areas affected are, then let the piece of metal to dry out for some half hour. After it's dry, you'll probably see that it turned kind of gray or even white-ish. It's no problem, it's normal, but it will be harder now to see those affected areas i was talking about before. That's why you memorized them. Now use a paint marker (one that has real paint in it, not the ones used to write on cd's or similar to those) or if you can't get one, you may also use some fingernail polish. Make some small dots over the affected areas. After you complete this, let the paint/fingernail polish to dry out. Be careful not to spoil the logo YOU WILL HAVE TO START OVER FROM STEP 1 IF YOU GET IT WRONG HERE... and that sucks )
14. After the paint has dried out, place the metallic piece under a water jet again. Cold water. Remove it after 1 minute, recheck for afected areas, if you still find them, you'll have to let the thing dry out again, and cover those parts with paint dots, again.
Here's mine.
and here's once i've done with the painting
After you're done, leave the whole thing to dry out for about 1 hour.
15. Get yourself some ferric chloride. You can get it from electronic components store, radioshack etc. It's used in electronics by hobbyists who want to etch their own pcb's. You'll need this stuff also. About 300ml will do.. The stuff is toxic, you don't want to touch it or spill it over clothes or other things, it will leave out some nasty spots that you can't remove. Use some gloves while handling this stuff. Now pour the ferric chloride into a plastic recipient big enough to fit the battery cover into.
Well i ignored the safety tip, but i'm being careful, i know the stuff, have been working with it for some good years.
16. Now you want to drop the battery cover...into the black stuff . Drop it with the logo side up. NOT DOWN. I really mean it. UP. Carefully swing the plastic recipient, just enough to move the liquid around. Try not to expose the metallic part, you must keep it submerged all the time. If you want to check the progress, be quick, lean the plastic recipient to one side just to expose the metallic piece, look at it, but then quickly lean the recipient back and keep the metallic piece submerged. Prolonged exposure to air in this stage can ruin your progress.
Here's how mine looks after 5 minutes into the ferric chloride. You'll be wanting to keep the metallic plate there for about 15-20 minutes. If you let it longer it will turn to a more darker color. If you let it just for 10 minutes you'll get a light gray. However you can't get an uniform black (or something as dark as an original battery cover) because if you let it this much you risk that the ferric chloride attacks the toner and paint surface, making holes in it or braking it apart.
Like i've said, here's the thing after 5 minutes. I want to let it for another 10-15 minutes.
17.
Once you left it for enough time, lean back the plastic recipient and look at the metallic piece once more. Take note that the color you see now will get a bit lighter once the whole process is finished. If you're satisfied, prepare a big water boll and quickly remove the metallic piece from the ferric chloride and drop it in the water. Be as quick as possible, while being careful not to drop the ferric chloride. Use gloves when doing this. Once the metallic piece is in the water, steer up the water with your hand.
Here's how mine looks now.
Your plate could be lighter or darker at this stage, depending on how much you left it in the ferric chloride. Don't worry if the color is not uniform. Instead, while the plate is still under water, get yourself a kitchen sponge, the one with one abrasive side and with the metallic plate still under water start rubbing it on the direction of the original brushed metal design you made in the start. Rub in only one direction, with the sponge and the plate always under water and continue to do so until the color becomes more uniform. Then use some isopropyl alcohol (also from radioshack - or the place you got the ferric chloride from.. they should also have this) and remove the metallic board from under the water. Now while the thing is still wet (don't let it dry!!!), get another sponge (clean dry one) and pour some isopropyl alcohol on the abrasive part and start rubbing the metallic piece once more, on the same and only direction (not back and forth). Rub in a parallel direction with the original scratches that makes your "brushed" design. The isopropyl alcohol should begin to disolve the toner and the paint. It should also help you to remove residual oxides left since you placed the metallic piece into the ferric chloride.
Here's my progress.
toner is starting to break down
18. aaaand... in the end, if you did it right, you should have something like this :
19. once the surface is of uniform color, wash the whole thing under a jet of hot water with some soap to remove any residues left by the chemical processes.
20. You're done! Now you have your custom made-hand crafted-geeky-logo. The logo itself won't peel off and the surrounding stuff is actually chemically embedded into the metal by a process similar to industrial aluminum anodizing (the same process used to cure aluminum used in unibody designs). Although it is scratch resistant to some degree, you may want to use some spray lacquer to protect your work.
I haven't got any lacquer yet but i'll use some if i can get some quality stuff. Here are some more photos with the thing so far.
(please excuse the photo quality, my camera and it's flash produces a weird looking effect, it seems that the metallic thing is kind of made from small dots, not brushed metal.. damned thing.. guess i'll be needing a new one)
...and a small video (with the same crappy camera)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtuRn02lPgY
Well, all in all, i like the thing. It's my first try at this, although i've done dozens of toner transfers to copper pcb's. I cannot be perfect at first try, probably neither you guys but is a good DIY afternoon fun.
I would also like to thank the xda community for giving me such a good times with my hd2's along with my other htc phones in the past. XDA has become such a successful community because of it's dedicated developers and users. I'm proud to wear the xda letters next to my phone.
PS: i promise i will also add a website link in the next version, if i get a new and more powerful iron, i was afraid this one won't be hot enough to heat the thing properly and transfer smaller text or details

amazing stuff dude!!!
i had lots of fun reading it and seeing the progress along the way and you've explained all the steps really well...the result speaks for itself!
++respect!

you my friend always surprise me, first with thermal solution and than THIS awesome " discovery ", thanks again .

Just like the user above said!
+respect Sir Facdemol!
awweeeeeeeeeeeeesome!!!!!

awesome....but tedious !

Its pretty cool but alot of work
Sent from the land were pigs fly

fantastic. really nicely done!

Love the mod.

thanks for the feedback
the mod took me about 3-4 hours to make. More complex designs are possible, ore similar designs on a mirror like finish. If the HD2 had an aluminum case.. hahah, that would have been fun...

I would vote for you for King of the HD2 hardware!

Very well done. I very well may have to try this. My battery cover is starting to look very bad.

OMG this is amazing! I may need to buy a metal backing for my phone just so I can do this.

this really looks sooo amazing. gread work!

That's bloody impressive! Might have to do this to my HD2

Damn that's awesome
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA Premium App

Holy crabcakes. That's rad
. . NS4G . . MIUI . .

Is it for sale? (jk)
Really really nice, I like it!
+1 on everything was said!

Amazing. Well done!

Awesome!
Very very cool!

WOW! "applause"