Review-AppleSauce iPod - Scratch Removal Kit

by James Bain Feb 02, 2007

My iPod is a true victim of “when bad things happen to good gadgets.”


“Criss, cross, applesauce”


I am brutal on my devices.


As an early adopter of the more sensibly cool and useful devices (you won’t catch ME buying into iPhonia quite yet), I’m a perpetual victim of peripheral lag, the time between the release of a new device and the availability of all the cozy form-fitting cases and other accessories designed for it.


As soon as reasonable and sturdy cases were available—peruse the many many pages of AppleMatters for my reviews of some of these—I “got protection” for my then-new Video iPod. Until the cases were out, well, my iPod looked like it had been attacked by wildcats.


The bulk of the damage pretty much happened within the first week after I bought it. The very worst scratch happened within hours of my getting it home! No subsequent combination of high-impact plastic, silicone rubber, machined aircraft-grade block aluminum, or Cordoba leather could do more than just mask the scars of those early days. Nothing could roll back the hands of time and the shameful damage still remained underneath.


Until today!


Well, last week, actually.


“Lay your hands in your lap!”


Applesauce Polish sent me a nice care package of their signature microfinishing products, a set of their Power Pad Discs, a pack of 6 extra Polishing Cloths, and one of their flagship iPod - Scratch Removal Kits.


I’m a big scaredy-cat coward when it comes to making something worse to make it better. It just seems counterintuitive.


However, after carefully reading and rereading the well-written and well-illustrated directions that came with all this stuff, I was ready, at least in theory, to cause some serious temporary harm in order to get some spectacular, as they advertised, long-term gains.


You can relax. I’ll give you the punch line now. It worked. Just like they said it would. Quite impressively.


Here’s more or less how it works. You will want to read, NEED to read, the enclosed directions carefully, but I’ve appended a few hints and reality checks herein.


Firstly, if your iPod is seriously messed up, you’ll need to go at it for a while with a Power Pad. Lay the iPod flat on one of the three cloths included with the iPod Scratch Removal Kit before you start, so you don’t ding up the metal up any more than you already have, or drip stuff all over your desk.


Note: these little abrasive pads will scratch up your iPod’s plastic, but they’re supposed to. What Applesauce called a “matte finish” looked to me like I had totally wasted my iPod. It was cosmetic, and temporary, but really really painful to watch.


Okay, rub rub rub with a Power Pad. I took about ten minutes until that Day One scratch on my iPod’s face was pretty much gone. Normal damage, they say, takes three to five minutes of this, but extraordinary damage, such as I was trying to fix, can take longer. Be brave. There’s a lot of plastic there and I can’t imagine you’ll actually wear through all of it, though I know I felt I was going to.


So, once the big scratches are gone, you apply the solutions from the iPod Scratch Removal Kit. You get two bottles of different stuff, Polish and Glaze, and after messing up your iPod with the Power Pad, you go over it with the Polish. This gets the smaller scratches, like the ones the Power Pad made. If your iPod wasn’t horribly gouged to begin with, you can probably start right on with the Polish.


It’s time consuming again. Be prepared for three to five 60-second rubfests. Put a bit of Polish on one of the included cloths, and with tight little circles rub lightly until the liquid is all absorbed. Apply again, rub some more. And so forth. Until all your smaller scratches are gone.


Now you use the Glaze. And this is fun because the really fine scratches, what you have now, go away!


Dab dab dab and rub rub rub. Dab dab dab and rub rub rub. And eventually you’re done. Polish your iPod off with a clean cloth and it looks almost new again!


“Now give them both a little clap!”


Thanks, Applesauce, for helping me fix up my iPod.


I give the AppleSauce Review-AppleSauce iPod - Scratch Removal Kit a 90%! I didn’t think I could fix those scratches, but I did, thanks to the products!


Tip: Buy the Power Pads if you’re thinking of picking up one of these kits. If your iPod is damaged enough that you’re thinking of repairing, the Power Pads will make restoration a lot easier and a lot faster!

Comments

  • Does it work for MacBook too ?

    WAWA had this to say on Feb 02, 2007 Posts: 89
  • will that work on my mother’s face? if so, it’d make the ultimate mother’s day gift. better than those fancy Q10 creams.

    nana had this to say on Feb 03, 2007 Posts: 63
  • To address the first question, no. It’s meant for a particular type of soft plastic and needs a certain amount of depth of plastic to wear through. Not sure if there are other products for screens. Let me know if you find any!

    James Bain had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 33
  • Well if its meant to be used in some soft plastics, I’m pretty sure we could use it to remove scratches from DVDs.

    nana had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 63
  • I’m sure it would work on disks. Wouldn’t warranty it, but if I had a mean scratch on a prized DVD, like my system reinstall disk say, I might give it a try.

    James Bain had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 33
  • On DVD’s? Based on my limmited knowledge of how DVD’s work, rubbing them to remove a scratch would also remove the bumps that make it work.

    simo66 had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 78
  • Oh yeah, you can use just about any polishing compound on DVDs. I use toothpaste in general but brasso works as well, the trick is to make sure the abrasive is mild. The reason it works is because the layer where the info is is not actually scratched it is the plastic layer covering the data layer that is marred. So you’re not really messing with the data, just scratched plastic.

    Chris Seibold had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 354
  • On DVD’s? Based on my limmited knowledge of how DVD’s work, rubbing them to remove a scratch would also remove the bumps that make it work.
    Well no, the information is not carried in the plastic, in fact, the info is in the thin reflective aluminium layer beneath the plastic.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc

    nana had this to say on Feb 04, 2007 Posts: 63
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