This time I'm going to be making these wooden phone cases. Well, actually they're just plastic cases
with veneer glued to the back, but in my opinion that's the better way
to do it. Not only do entirely would cases end up
being quite chunky, but they're also extremely difficult to
make. I'll be showing you how to make this
iPhone 4s case, because this technique works so well with phone cases with an entirely flat
back, but I'll also be experimenting with a
second phone case, which doesn't have a particuarly flat back and that's for the Nexus 5, which is the
phone I own, which I thought was also worth giving a
shot.
Unless for some reason you're desperate
to get your smartphone covered in sawdust and glue, the first thing you're going
to want to do is make a substitute phone like this, out of wood. As a base for these wooden
covered phone cases, I'm using these very cheap plastic cases, which I picked up on eBay for less than
two pounds each. I'm starting off by scuffing the
back of the phone case, to provide a better surface for the glue to adhere to. I would
actually recommend that you do this step by hand, as using the belt sander, as I'm
doing here, can tend to create quite a bit heat, which could potentially damage your thin
plastic case.
I'm cutting out the walnut burl veneer,
which I'll be using, with a Stanley knife. A straight grain veneer will work even better. Now I'm ready to go ahead and glue the
veneer to the plastic case. I'm using some five minute epoxy for
that, which should just about give me enough working time, if I'm quick about it. It's at this point I realize I'm about
to glue my substitute phone to the inside of
the case, so I quickly use some masking tape to
cover up where the holes in the back of the case are.
I'm wrapping the case as tightly as I
can in masking tape, which I'm hoping will apply pressure to
the curved edges of the case, as well as to the back. Instead a masking
tape, you could also try using lots of elastic bands. And glueing the iPhone case is much
easier, as I can just use a couple of clamps to apply a small amount of pressure. With the glue dry now on these cases, I'm
ready to move on to what will be the most boring stage in this entire process and that's
removeing all the squeeze-out and just
cleaning up the edges, to where it looks nice and neat and I've actually kinda started the
iPhone case already, so I'm about to do some work
on the Nexus case.
I've already gone ahead and
cut away the excess on the iPhone case and that worked out pretty nicely. It's
not quite as simple for the Nexus case. Because of the curve around the sides, I won't just be able to trim along the
edges. There's also some areas of quite
quite poor adhesion. What I thought I would do instead, is using this rule and a Stanley knife again I'm going to trim along the edge where
the very beginning of the curve starts and I think that will look alright. Just by cleaning up those edges it's
already looking a lot better than it was.
If you don't have a bunch of power tools
at your disposal, you can certainly use hand tools to do
the same thing. Here I'm using a cabinet scraper to clean
up the squeeze-out glue on the iPhone case.
I'm using this multi tool, although you might know as a Dremel tool, to cut out the little camera hole in the
back of the cases. With all that sanding done, I'm
applying a few coats of finishing oil to the veneer. I think you certainly could try using
lacquer, or something like that, but I'm a bit concerned that a film finish like that,
would just get to scratched from day to day use. Added to the fact
that I don't really have the time available to me to apply finish like
that, I'm happy to use the finishing on oil. As I expected the iPhone 4s case did
come out a lot better than the Nexus 5 case, but
that being said, the Nexus 5 case did still come out a lot better than I
thought it would, so I'm very please with the finished
result.
I titled this video a DIY project because I expect you to be doing
this project yourself. If any of you end up with some
finished phone cases, send me some pictures over on Facebook, there's some links
down in the description for that. It would be great to see what you come
up with! As always, be sure to like, share, comment and subscribe before you go, take care everyone, I'll see you all in the next video, goodbye..
