herald exterior mod - Wing, P4350 General

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!!!

Related

Do you like my qtek ?

Do you like it ??
How you have made it? i too want...
it is pleasant to me
it is awesome .. how did u do it?
well i had to dismantle the phone :S I passed a very thin sandpaper (600k) on the covers to remove the original ink !! then with a black mate spray i painted it ,let it dry very well and then applied varnish in spray also and voila !! black s100
adolfotregosa said:
well i had to dismantle the phone :S I passed a very thin sandpaper (600k) on the covers to remove the original ink !! then with a black mate spray i painted it ,let it dry very well and then applied varnish in spray also and voila !! black s100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very nice.. I was planning to do a metallic whitish colour.
Also, I think the button needs to be painted too.. do you have plans for those.. and how are you planning to do it?
Thanks
no, i like the bottons has they are
Let the buttons as they are, the contrast is very nice. I wonder how long will the paint least until scratches will appear :lol:
i think that they will not appear has they didn't appear on my laptop paintjob
adolfotregosa said:
i think that they will not appear has they didn't appear on my laptop paintjob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And what is the name of the paint spray and varnish you've used?
great job adolfotregosa! how did you remove the lcd from the front casing. i have already dismantled my unit following the pdf posted by someone, which was more intented to fix the speaker problem.
GreenGremlin. any model toy paint spray usually works. it is important to sand off the surface with a very fine sand paper like what adolfotregosa used to remove any clear coat lacquer, and then sand it off again with wet, fine sand paper.
Love the color and I live the job done. Hmmm... Can anyone PM me the link on removing the case, I will try this out and I plan to make a design, ofcourse a yellow looking Imate won't look that good...
The PDF is quite big in size to send via email. i couldn't upload it to the ftp also thus here's the link.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=18384&highlight=disassemble
btw, the pdf was originally made by someone to try to fix the speaker problem. i didn't dare to remove the LCD since i didn't want to break anything, most especially the LCD.
if someone would be kind enough to post instructions on how to remove the LCD would greatly be appreciated by the group.
I saw some pretty cool jams on some site a while back that had been skinned,looks a pretty good alternative and you can change them all the time,don't know where to buy them from though!
I saw some pretty cool jams on some site a while back that had been skinned,looks a pretty good alternative and you can change them all the time,don't know where to buy them from though!
good job mate....ur magicien looks elegant....waiting for other designs from everyone....r u up for the challenge guys?it will be nice to turn this thread into housing cover design expo... :wink:
btw:i don't own a magicien but am considering repainting my mda2,something red with a ferrari sign maybe.. :lol:
what do u think???? :?
hey adolfotregosa....how did you get the perfect circles for the camera lens and the mirror? can you take them out or did you tape them?...of you taped them...how did you sand it?...i have everything i need to paint it WHITE (i wanted ferrari RED but they didnt have it in KRYLON brand paint)....so it'll look like ice cream sandwich but opposite....lol...i will post pictures when i am done.
can you take them out ! it's a single piece. white should be nice !! but i'm no mac fan :S lol
Very nice! I would love to add a slightly opaque white iPod effect on mine
jaythemagician said:
I saw some pretty cool jams on some site a while back that had been skinned,looks a pretty good alternative and you can change them all the time,don't know where to buy them from though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think you're talking about a site called skinit.com They sell vinyl skins that peel off when you want to change the look. The skins cost around $10 USD, but I don't recall seeing anything on their site for a Jam.

Pimp my Wizard

Hi folks, in the past few weeks I slowly tried to pimp my Wizard and this is the outcome
First I took the whole think apart, then I sanded the paint and metall on the front cover off, and painted the whole thinkg as you can see black with car-paint . Yes, there are still a few things that didnt went that well, like on the back the breaking line between the part left free around the camera and the black surface around is not that clear,and I am affraid i took a little bit too much paint (in total around 6-7 layers). I guess this happend during the time the paint dryied. But all in all I think I did not a bad job...
And the Wizard only looks that great cause of zoki's fantastic ROM!
sure looks sweet!
Thanks for the tip, I Think I might do that to mine.
Thanks, if you have any questions, i would be happy to help .
niiiceeeee.. did you sand the thing before paint? there is a similar paint job.. i think it is called the 'white wizard'. very nice too
I think I'll paint mine a litle less bright, I mean your shade of black is like piano black. Maybe I'll paint it Black Dim.
Do I really need to sand it all?
How did you do it, cause mine's got some scratches and stuff...
Hyyy
WOW dude ur wizard is rocking
i wanna do that to mine but i have a couple of questions
can u explain step by step which screws and how to open up the wizard coz im a complete noob
also wat knda paint was it water based or oil based was it spray paint or brush painting and also everything else thanx man
again great foneeeee
one more hting i looked at the pictures and u have the power amera button etc silver but originally on mone they are black how did u get them to be like that
thanx again
for the manual... try here:
http://michael-channon.spaces.live.com/
yeah, i think it also looks great, althougth... nope, i like it
@xusso, and mony114
I thinks depends which parts you want to paint, i wanted to paint the whole Wizard black, exept the buttons, and the circle around the camera as you can see. execpt for those parts, i sanded all other parts.
The sanding was quite easy (althought took some time and patience) exept for the front cover of the cellphone, it is not paint but kind of a metal surface around 0.2 mm think but beneath it is also plastic. Yes, i also sanded this one, but this was a lot of trouble, cause some places of this part are thin and it is dangerous to break them. But i think this is defenitly worth to sand as well.
Around the screen, there is a real mettal grid, this one i didnt and i think you also shouldnt sand. (in my first attempt to paint the Wizard, i left this part out, but afterwards I look in my opinion not so good, so i also painted it).
For the sanding of the plastic parts, i took 220-sand paper, and for the metallic surface on the front cover, i first went with a 100-sand paper over it and finished it off with the 220.
When I finished sanding all the parts i wanted to paint, I put stich over all the places and buttons i didnt wanted to paint black. (altought they also got some paint, it was not so grave, cause with a hard plastic card or screwdriver you can screch (in genearl) the coulor off again).
For painting (spay paint!) I took 'Black Glossy Rallye-Lack'. When you paint it, do it out in the open and for christ sake, take some protecion to cover your mouth!!! I didnt and I can tell you, it is totally not worth no to do. Hours afterwards I still had the bitter taste of lack in my mouth. (not mentioning the healh-danger).
I painted around 5-6 (kind of thin) layers. After every layer wait long enough untill the paint is dry. (I waited around 1 hour). After the last layer I let the parts dry over night for the paint to fully get dry. (it is worth it, otherwise you end up with fingerprints or other nasty stuff sticking on the paint).
et voila when you put i back togheter again dont forget to connect the soundboxes on the side or the keyboard like I did otherwise you have to disassamble the Wizard again .
I hope my small instruction help you further, if u still have any questions i am glad to help...
ps.: can u also post some images when u are finished, I would like to see how others paint their Wizard...
That was a great tutorial, thanks again!
I'll post my pics when I'm done with mine...
Maybe I paint it ...Pink!

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!
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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.

[Q] Fixing damage on the backside of the HD2

Last night I managed to drop my phone. It landed ugly and now I a small crater on the back side of the phone (the 'soft' darkgray plastic).
Any suggestions how to fill it up ~ fix it?
Miliput might work? Sands down nice.
samsamuel said:
Miliput might work? Sands down nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems that milliput is only available in black, is there some other kind of 'wax' that can be used to fill it up? For example will toothpaste work?
Thanks for the quick reply!
Lol, it might work. We once filled hundreds of dart holes in plaster with toothpaste before painting the wall, going strong fifteen or so years later.
I'd go chat to someone in a modelling shop, see what they have to say.
Having said that, black is their LATEST colour. Go to milliput.com, there's four or five colours.
Lol, it might work. We once filled hundreds of dart holes in plaster with toothpaste before painting the wall, going strong fifteen or so years later.
I'd go chat to someone in a modelling shop, see what they have to say.
Having said that, I didn't really believe you about only black so Googled it,,, black is their LATEST colour. Go to milliput.com, there's four or five colours.
Aphromode said:
It seems that milliput is only available in black, is there some other kind of 'wax' that can be used to fill it up? For example will toothpaste work?
Thanks for the quick reply!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yupp toothpaste does work pretty well, if mixed with epoxy
You have to sand off "soft feel" coating to base plastic and fill that hole with thick paste obtained from dissolving small pieces of ABS plastic in Dichloroethane (TOXIC, do NOT inhale, work only at open air), give it a day to cure, sand it and paint your phone with a good polyurethane paint

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"

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