asked 2016-09-18 13:36:55 +0200

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2016-09-18 15:13:20 +0200

stoft
311 ●11 ●13 ●18

Summary

Using some simple cheap tools you can round out the corners of your Intex AquaFish/JollaC.

I'm posting this as a wiki page so that others possibly can improve on the process in the future. Comments/questions/improvements much appreciated!

Warnings

• This will most likely void your warranty!
• If you break your phone following the below instructions, don't blame me, mine still works!
• This involves working with plastics, take necessary precautions (ventilation, mouth filter etc.) and take care of waste responsibly. I also do not know whether the plastic has some type of protective coating that may be ruined in this process.

Time & Material

Anything in "[ ]" is optional.

• Roughly 2-3hrs manual labour (I had never done this before).
• Less than 20€ in Western Europe:
  • Sandpaper P180, [P240,] P320 (~5€)
  • Nail files (~4€)
  • Nail buffer (3-in-1 was good) (~4€)
  • Masking tape (I already had some)
  • [Hobby gloss + paintbrush] (not recommended, see below)
  • [old TOH] for experimentation if you don't trust me ;)

Background

I really dislike the hard angle corners and edges of the Intex AquaFish/JollaC so I decided to try to do something about it. A quick search on the Internet indicated that it would be possible to sandpaper plastic. The recommendation was to use fine-grained sandpaper, something above P120 (the higher the finer). In one of the answers it was also mentioned that gloss would be a good idea (which it turns out it was not, or I got the wrong gloss, or I don't understand gloss).

Implementation

This led to me heading off to a hobby store to pick up some materials. They had a 3-in-1 (P180, P280, P340) packet of sandpaper, perfect! They also had gloss and paintbrushes.

Back home I set to work, started by experimenting with a corner of one of my TOHs, the one I like the least. That's when the idea struck me that some nail files and buffers would probably be good to have so I headed off to get some of those as well.

Back at home my work process was more or less like this:

1. Cover openings/sensitive areas with masking tape.
2. Sandpaper with P180 (the coarsest) varying the angle against the paper to get nice curves. Having the sandpaper flat on the table turned out very well.
3. Sandpaper with P320 (the finest) to get better smoothness (I skipped using P280 pretty quickly).
4. File above all the corners with the finer side of the nail file (the coarse side was simply too coarse) to get nice curves, this was detailed work that was much easier with the file than with sandpaper.
5. Buff all the areas with the nail buffer, starting with the coarsest and moving down to the finest.
6. Redo all of the above for different parts of the phone moving the masking tape around depending on which edge/corner I was working on.
7. Clean all dust away using a damp cloth.
8. Apply gloss. (mistake)

Reflections and possible improvements:

• From a touch/sense point of view I'm really happy with the result, the phone feels much nicer in my hand, and my pockets will hopefully last longer now. The colour difference on the parts that I filed down is not as nice but I can live with it.
• As mentioned earlier gloss was a mistake, even after having dried it was just slightly sticky and started collecting lint and dust. I've now started scraping it off.
• At a previous job we used an intense clean flame (an acetylene torch) to smooth out rough plexi/plastic edges after they had come out of the cutter. Something similar, e.g. a small kitchen torch such as cooks use, could be used to do the same here instead of the gloss (a lighter may be hot enough but also produces soot that may discolour). At the same time, intense heat near sensitive electronics is probably not a good idea. :-P But possibly applicable to the back cover since it can be removed from the phone.

TOH, AquaFish, nail file, nail buffer and sheet of sandpaper:

Sensitive areas covered:

Unmodified corner/edge:

Work in progress:

Buff work:

Applied gloss:

End Result

Bottom edge orange (lint and discolouration evident):

Top edge orange:

Top edge black:

Bottom edge black:

Rounded corner:

Rounded corner: