This case is not intended for permanent use. It is good for people whose work involves physical labor or lovers of extreme hiking; it does not have any aesthetic functions and serves only to protect against rough mechanical impact on a fragile gadget.
To make a hard steel case you will need:
- a piece of galvanized steel.
- sander
- ruler and marker.
- sandpaper.
- soldering iron with tin and flux for soldering.
- scotch.
- paper.
- transparent propylene (for screen).
- drill.
- thin sponge.
- leather (or substitute leather).
Making a metal case for a cell phone
First, let's take all the measurements from the phone: length, width, thickness, location from the edges of the camera, speakers, flash and keys.We transfer all the parameters onto paper.
Now we take a sheet of galvanized steel of the required size and glue a paper template to it using double-sided tape.
Using a sander, we cut out the walls of the future cover according to the template - the front, back, and a long strip for the end walls. It is not necessary to remove everything down to the millimeter with a grinder - it is long, difficult and tedious. Cut roughly along the contours, and then file it to perfection. We drill holes in the places of the camera, speaker and other things and, using a file or needle file, bring them to the required parameters.
Now we need to remove the galvanized layer from the steel from the front sides of all workpieces. Again, using a sander and coarse sandpaper, remove the zinc layer. After removing the zinc layer, change the emery wheel to a finer-grained one and grind the workpieces. Don't forget about the end strip! Personally, I was too lazy to make holes in it for the volume and power keys, but simply downloaded the necessary widgets and displayed them on the phone display. But this is an individual matter and everyone can make these keys for their own convenience.
Next, using a soldering iron, flux and tin, solder the end strip and the back wall of the case.
Due to the insignificant thickness of the metal, this will not cause any difficulties. Now we paste double-sided tape on the inside over the entire area of the workpiece. We apply a thin, two-millimeter sponge so that it sticks to the entire surface.
We cut out an overlay from leather for the inner side of the workpiece.
The back side with the ends is ready.
Now let's work on the front side. To attach the front plate with the screen to the ends and back, we solder corners of the same metal to it. So that they are close to the end walls inside the cover.
Next, we cut out a screen from transparent propylene, so that we can then secure it with double tape to the inside of the front blank.
We also cut out the keys (I covered them with foil), glue regular tape to the holes for the keys on the inside and stick the keys on the outside.
After checking that everything is in place as expected, we temporarily remove the screen and keys. Using a sander and a felt disc, sand the cover to the required cleanliness.
But here everything is not so simple - first I polished the metal to a mirror blue, but this turned out to be unnecessary (at least for me), since any, even the slightest typos, grease stains from the skin of the fingers and other blots are visible on it. I had to work with my hands and zero-grit sandpaper. This way I made the metal matte.
Well, that’s basically it. The case is ready. The weight of the phone together with such a case does not change significantly, due to the small thickness of the metal.
