Can you help me with the easiest case mod ever?

July 5, 2014 8:12 AM

I want to very slightly widen the hole for the headphone jack on my phone's bumper case. What is the best way to go about doing this?

Thanks, MeFites!

posted by Quilford to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

Am I missing something? What's the difficulty? Just drill it out, no? Even a hand held drill bit would be able to cut into that material I'd have thought.
posted by Brockles at 8:14 AM on July 5, 2014

You might want to use a sanding cone drill bit like this one to help control the size of the new hole.
posted by samsara at 8:25 AM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

A Unibit is the best thing, but a bit expensive for one-time use.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:29 AM on July 5, 2014

I did this by scraping it with a small paring knife.
posted by arnicae at 9:01 AM on July 5, 2014

If the plastic is hard enough, I'd try a Tapered Reamer, which is cheap and handy to have around. It also pretty much guarantees circularity, which may be aesthetically important.
posted by jenkinsEar at 9:38 AM on July 5, 2014

I mean, if this is a semi-pliable case (I can't tell from looking at the photo), a drill seems like overkill to me. Get an X-acto knife and do your thing.
posted by sevensnowflakes at 10:12 AM on July 5, 2014

Maybe just stick a sharpened pencil in there and rotate. This was how we used to loosen up 33 1/3 vinyl when a new LP record stuck to the spindle, back in the day.
posted by Rash at 11:31 AM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Pliers type paper punch.
posted by hortense at 2:55 PM on July 5, 2014

Heat up a reamer with a cigarette lighter, stick it in, and rotate it a few times so there's a slight amount of resistance. Go slow - you can't un-enlarge a hole.

Alternately they have lots of skinny inexpensive 3.5mm plugs at your local swap meet/eBay/MonoPrice.com.
posted by ostranenie at 5:13 PM on July 5, 2014

Came to suggest a punch, but you want a belt hole punch. Get a piece of shit one at like harbor freight, or the home depot "HDX" brand. it can easily cost under $5 i bet, possibly even half that. I think i've seen them at daiso japan for $3 before...
posted by emptythought at 6:45 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Open up a pair of scissors, stick one of the blades in the hole, and twist it around a few times so the sharp edge scrapes off a thin layer of plastic from the inside of the hole. I used to do this all the time before I had access to things like drill presses.
posted by moonmilk at 8:53 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]