Spiff Up a Scuffed iPhone 5—With a Little Sandpaper

BY Tris Hussey

Published 12 Nov 2012

Polished iP5

Have an iPhone 5 (black model) that’s already starting to show scuffs and wear-and-tear? Well a helpful iPhone fan has figured out how to safely (relatively) and easily polish the sides to a shiny finish.

Spotted on iDownloadBlog (via a MacRumors forum post), an iPhone 5 owner decided he was sick of the scuffs on his new iPhone 5. Apple says that is supposed to happen over time, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it!

So Travis Hansen took matters into his own hands—literally. Here’s the video on how he got that cool shine:

Travis used 1500 grit sandpaper (you can go to 2000 for an even finer polish) for this mod and he notes you need to be carful around the buttons so you don’t take the finish of those. Also, if you want the screen-side shiny too, you should take the screen off.

Which brings up an important point: Do this at your own risk! I’m going to bet that you’ll void your Apple warranty doing this little touchup and removing the screen will certainly void the warranty.

Me? I guess now I’m happy that the Apple Store was all out of black iPhone 5s when I got mine…

Picture from iDownloadBlog.