anelok: the Y-Box paint job, part 2: polishing

Werner Almesberger werner at almesberger.net
Sat Nov 16 16:35:03 EST 2013


This is what we have so far:

http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/ybox-paint-mid.jpg

Looks pretty, doesn't it ?  Well, if you look carefully ...

http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/ybox-paint-rough.jpg

... you see that the sides aren't very nice. They are rough and the
depth bands at which the mill worked on them are clearly visible.
Worse yet, there's a step between the two halves. It may look small
but some of the steps I found are quite noticeable.

There's also a bit of mask that I hadn't spotted before taking the
picture.

The steps can be removed with coarse sandpaper. The deep scratches
the sandpaper leaves yield to finer sandpaper. Yet finer sandpaper
makes things smooth enough for polishing.

For polishing, I used my dremel and their "polishing compound"
witch's brew. They even made a video that shows how to do this
(click on "Product Video"):

http://www.dremeleurope.com/gb/en/ocs/product/6037/168/polishing-wheels/polishing-compound

Here's the result:

http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/ybox-paint-polish-one.jpg

The sides are now very smooth, smooth enough that I think the same
process can yield an acceptably clear window for the OLED.

The polishing compound also leaves some red residues that are quite
hard to remove. Maybe that's intentional, to show where there are
deeper scratches that still need work.

One issue that can be seen in this picture is that the paint comes
off the inside of the outer wall where the two case parts meet.
There is another layer of paint on the inside of the inner wall but
that doesn't hide the flaw. This issue still needs work.

Both cases:

http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/anelok/tmp/ybox-paint-polish-two.jpg

The ragged termination on the USB A connector shows another
problem. Maybe I should simply let the paint go all the way to the
edge. Or add some threshold to provide a sharp edge to help with
building a barrier.

Next: see what it all looks like in action.

- Werner



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