PANZERHANDY - the Armoured Cell Phone

How many times I broke a mobile phone by just letting it fall on the ground or - everybody gets angry, sometimes - while throwing it to the wall or someone's head...

Too many, many too many. Even my strongest Samsung shockproof didn't resist, finally.

Mobiles are fragile, too fragile, and need our protection.

So I decided to develop an armour - a panzer!

An armour will
1) protect the inside
2) make you think twice before throwing it
3) be more effective when the phone goes ballistic

Low-cost, shockproof. And, don 't forget, cool!

Needs:
- some scrap or, in my case, a few metal sabots used in woodconstruction stuff
- an old mixer
- all the metal working gear you can grab

Sabots are cool stuff: cheap, and already plied. Only some cutting, welding & grinding to make the pieces you want.

Cutting, welding, grinding, again.

To properly cut the sides of the box I prepared a box outside the box with the thickness I wanted.
Some grinding and the job was done.

How fixing the bottom to the box? Love-less bolts, of course, welded in the box.

Cutting, drilling, countersinking, sanding, fixing.

Or how two two male-female hinges become one male-female-male hinge.

Welding the two males to the cover, and the female to the box.

No armour without appropriate helmet. Since I liked the combination of steel & copper of the popular 'templar helmet' I decided to do something in that way, my way (and to avoid religious symbols but that's another discussion).

Mixers, taps & so on are made of copper.

I'll show you two ways to obtain a large copper piece on the cheap:
- cutting & flattening a copper tube
- dismantling a mixer

I those the second because I wanted it to be relatively thick.

Transfer the image to the copper piece & start cutting & sanding.

Copy the image on the box.
Drill the holes for speaker, plug & image in the box.
Use a dremel countersink to enlarge (although I wasn't satisfied at all of this tool).
Use a classic file to enlarge better.
A bit sanding finish the job.

I'm a big fan of sef-drilling screws.
Some pre-drilling in the nose and there you go.
Cut the excess & put a few points of welding on the back to assure that the screws will never go away.

Copy the configuration of your mobile on a transparent foil, glue it VERSO in the box, point, drill & file.
Now you'll sure that behind each hole there will be a button.

Put a screw in every hole.
Fix them with a bolt.
Cut & grind.
Remove the bolts: you'll become tiny screws that will perfectly have the rigt size.

Put some grease on the back of the pad to prevent the glue will stick to it.
Put the screws in place.
Take a piece of transparent foil with some glue.
Put in on the back & let it dry.
Now you'll have a real steel keypad.

Note that I polished the whole before fixing the keypad.

Put some foam tape inside the box to maintain the phone in place & screw the cover.

Finally, does the steel keypad work?

It works!!!

Hope you liked this one, and thanxxxxxxxxxx for whatching!