Since the debut of the iPhone I thought it needed a bit more sparkle and wow. Changing the color through paint was out of the question due to durability issues, I wanted to create something special. I have seen some mods online where people paint their phones with spray paint, even one place that gold plates the black. Paint is crappy especially spray paint. Trying to get it to bond on metal is impossible and with keys in my pocket and everything else it would end up looking horrible after a month. The place that gold plates the backs has the same problem. Anyone who knows anything about metal plating knows that while gold plating aluminum is possible it is really scrappy and wears off really easy. This wasn't a viable solution. After a lot of research and analysis of the iPhone hardware itself I came across an interesting technology, TiN.
Used on industrial drill bits and high wear applications this plasma deposition seemed like the perfect solution. With my research I found it is used on many high end watches to create an extremely durable beautiful surface finish.
You can check out its cool properties on your own, for me it became the holy grail for my iPhone modification. Again a lot of work ensued and a lot of $ spent but I have finally done it. Here are some pix, The gold is TiN and the black is TiAlN. Let me tell you these things are a bear to take good pictures of. I also tracked down some new aluminum backs and had them hard anodized black to match the black antenna cover.
http://www.genmay.com/showthread.php?t=775108
