Hunt for a White Ocean: Part II
Posted by Greg Kumparak on April 22nd, 2008 at 03:42 PM
And now I’m going to make your
The hunt continues. Last post, I was trying to track down an Ocean body that hadn’t been sprayed with its soft-touch coat yet.
After about a week and a half of digging around, it didn’t seem like this was going to happen. So, I said screw it - If I couldn’t get an Ocean body that hadn’t been sprayed with soft touch yet, I’d remove the soft touch coat myself.
I did a bit of research, trying to find any chemical strong enough to remove the clear coat but weak enough that it wouldn’t eat the plastic. It seemed like for every one person saying something would work fine, another three were saying it would destroy the plastic and punch me in the face. I didn’t really want to take any chances, so I grabbed some sand paper and a bottle of elbow grease, and attacked.
(For good measure, I wore a respirator I had laying around. I had no idea what would be flying around in the area as I sanded this thing down. I was doing the sanding out in front of my house, which was probably not the best idea in hindsight. My gas-mask-esque contraption totally spooked at least 2 of my neighbors.)
About 3 hours of disassembly and sanding later, my Ocean is ready for painting:
Click for larger image
It was a bit of work to make sure I didn’t accidentally round any of the surface edges, break any tabs, or scratch up the camera mirror - but it all worked out, as far as I can tell. I lost the Helio logo that was pressed into the paint on the battery, but I’m pretty sure that was unavoidable.
Next Steps:
- Masking off all the stuff that needs to be masked.
- Give it a solid cleaning
- Spray it with 5 or so uber light coats, possibly sanding between coats depending on how it’s holding.
- Clear coat
- Reassembly
- White Ocean Whoooooo!
Off to the hardware store to research paints and clear coats. More coming as it’s finished.
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
i was thinking of taking apart my old ocean and doing something similar to this. i’ll see when i can post pictures of it later on, if i ever do it.
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Man will it suck when they just come out with a white Ocean. Lol, at least yours will be home-made with love.
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
i was thinking of taking apart my old ocean and doing something similar to this. i’ll see when i can post pictures of it later on, if i ever do it. or buy a display ocean.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
This is sweet. I would love to do this to my ocean but it is my only one and it might destroy it. But it is still freakin sweet!
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:59 am
U shud give it the glossy look. Also, I suggest air brushing…quick and easy.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:06 am
this sounds like a really neat project you have here. can’t wait to see the finished product.
oh, you could always stencil the helio logo back onto the phone.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:07 am
clear coat = glossy. good luck with it greg keep it up.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:49 am
i’d highly suggest “cooking” it once you put on the clear coat! keep the oven temp to 100-115 degrees so the plastic doesn’t melt but it’s high enough to harden the paint & clear coat. i’d say an hour would do it just fine. i had to do this when i finished painting my paintball gun since the clear coat gets dinged up easily, even with rust-oleum! you’ll thank me later when accidentally whack it against something
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Tell me why the coating is bad? I have been wondering why they were not able to do this a LONG time ago with other cell phones. With the coating, the phone NEVER slips out of my hand, and I don’t have to worry about getting an additional cover, as it holds up to just about everything. ONLY issues I have with the OCEAN is the font size (wish they knew FEW people can read point six font comfortably) AND wish the web browser were a true web browser. That’s it. FONT SIZE and TRUE WEB are the only issues I have. I heard that Ocean II will have an enlarged font, but don’t know about the web.