Shine up your iPods with Brasso...

It:s only three hapence a tin.. Well, $4.47 CDN at the shop on the corner.

I just purchased a shiny new 20 gigabyte 4G iPod. It's fantastically wonderful, and even smaller than the 3G pods by a fair margin. What really sold me (beyond the fact that my music collection has finally passed 10 gigs and I needed room to grow) was the new ClickWheel interface, as previously found on the iPod mini.

I found the ClickWheel to be superior to the horrible 3G iPod button design, and even better than the 1G/2G buttons.

So now that I have 2 iPods, I'm sure I don't need one of them, so I'm trying to find a new home for my old 2G 10gig unit.

It's going for $250 including the iPod, charger, firewire cable, remote control, and Belkin FM Transmitter.. Email if interested, or it'll be on Ebay this week.

Which finally brings me to Brasso. I'd read elsewhere on the interweb that Brasso was a great, cheap alternative to the $30 specialty iPod cleansers. So I picked up some at the local grocery store, and grabbed an old washcloth, and went to town.

Not 10 minutes later I was amazed at the results. I started on the back of the iPod, which was previously a marred collection of scratches and grime, from its trip around the world. I removed the Air India and SuperDuck stickers, and applied a dab of Brasso to my old cloth. I rubbed fairly firmly in a circular motion until my arm got a little sore.

Quite to my amazement, I can now see myself in the mirror finish on the back of the pod. I can still see tiny little scratch marks if I look close enough, but the larger scratches, and the murky finish are gone. It feels NEW again.

There's no way I'd have this luck on the front, would I? Who're we kidding, this is BRASSO - legend of song and websites! After only 5 minutes of light rubbing, the front looks a LOT better. I can compare the top screen area to the bottom corners around the wheel and there is a BIG difference in finish. Smaller scratches are gone, and a sizeable gouge has been reduced to a small nick. I'm hoping that actually following instructions, lettting the Brasso work in and then removing it (like car wax) will work even better. Especially when I put a bit of elbow grease into it.

I'll see if I can post photos of the results.

In the meantime, here is the Brasso Song, as sung to my by Uncle Phil around campfires as a young lad. His other famous song was the one about the hat with 3 corners.

My fathers a lavatory cleaner
He cleans them by day and by night
And when he comes home in the evening
He's covered all over with . .

Chorus:
Shine your buttons with Brasso
It's only three ha'pence a tin
You can buy it or whip it from Woolworths
But I don't think they've got any in

And when it came round to Christmas
He gave my ma a great fright
For instead of bringing her chocolates
He brought her a box full of . . .

:chorus:

Some say that he died of a fever
Some say that he died of a fit
But, I know very well what he died of
He died of the smell of the . . .

:chorus:

Some say that he's buried in a graveyard
Some say that he's buried in a pit
But, I know very well what he's buried in
He's buried in six foot of . . .

:chorus: