desi
says:
Okay, let's be honest. I don't care about my cellphone. Which is why I just put a decent scratch on its screen with a scalpel, similar to the scratch on my touchscreen. I tried toothpasting the outside of the cellphone, and it did work, but it's uncertain to what extent it worked, seeing as things can be stratched a little just by wiping them. Using toothpaste to repair a screen relies on two things: the stiffness of the tissue paper you're using, and the awesome slightly-abrasive power of toothpaste. I'm not using toothpaste with baking soda in it. That would be silly.
I've put another, deeper scratch on a non-viewable part of the cellphone's screen. Let's see how well toothpaste really works.
To begin, I've put a decent dab of toothpaste on the screen and spread it evenly. The internet also tells me to let it dry for a few minutes, to release the Awesome. I'm going to brush my own teeth while I wait.
Okay, first try is fail. Too much toothpaste, I think. Going to apply less paste and try again. The very miniscule scratches are gone, but the ones I placed are still there.
Waiting for it to dry. I do remind you that this is being liveblogged, so to speak. Liveforumed?
It also occurs to me now that the results from this test may be less than wow, simply because the top layer of my cellphone's LCD screen is, well, glass. And a DS has a plastic cover.
I'm going to go scratch up some spare acrylic I keep around.
Second try on the glass screen is also a reasonable failure. I'll start the test on plastic in a sec and tell you how it went.
With this test on plastic, I'd like to say that I lied when I said it was acrylic. This plastic is the stuff used on vials of distilled water and other such medicines. It is as soft, if not softer, than the DS's touch screen cover.
Not much of a result on the plastic. Again, tiny scratches were removed, but the scratch I placed there was still visible.
Would I use this on my touchscreen? Not now. While the scratches I made had diminished, toothpaste doesn't feasibly do much besides removing small scratches. I would rather use a more abrasive solution, like a CD repair fluid, or even Brasso to remove large scratches, and then finish the job with toothpaste, if necessary. At the end of today, all I was left with was a minty-fresh cellphone screen.
You know what? To hell with it. I've proven that toothpaste doesn't damage very soft plastic. It's time I did what this thread's article said: used the toothpaste on my DS. If this works, then that's one less trip to The Outside that I have to make. Let's goooo!
It's been applied and is drying. Let's talk about the scenario here. Tiny piece of dirt or sand or whatnot lands on screen. Stylus moves on top of debris. Debris scratches screen twice. The scratches are 2.5 to 3cm long, and run vertically. Toothpaste, being slightly abrasive, will eventually wear down the rest of the screen to the same level as the scratches, or else something more abrasive will. The toothpaste I'm using is Steradent, seeing as it's the only thing I had that didn't have 'freshness strips'.
Screen is really clean and fresh, but the two scratches still remain. As expected.
Will buy Brasso and CD repair fluid when I next go out. I've also read about a product called Displex, which I will order from eBay and will write up once it comes in. Thanks for reading!
02/23/2007
Sydney