Don't worry! Only the back of it! I figured i'd share my procedure with you guys. Maybe someone with an extra ipod laying around will want to pretty it up. I don't encourage you try this on something you love! Sorry for the horrible pics, I had the f-stop open the whole way as it was dark in my house.
Anyway 5 years of pocket duty took its toll on my poor little iPod touch 1st generation (1g as some like to call it .gif)
) I decided I would test my muscles on some very hard stainless steel. For those who don't know, stainless is quite a hard metal that only crazy people try to polish by hand. 
On wit da story yo!
To do this I went and picked up some 180grit, 220, 4x0, 600 and 1200 grit sandpaper from the local body shop. I used this to attempt to sand out the deep scratches on the back of my ipod that made it look Oh So worthless. Here are some pictures of the process.
Before going mad...
Didn't look so bad did it? I know I know, I just wanted to be a handy man :(
Now comes the point of no return... DONT LOOK IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO APPLE ABUSE! After hiting it with the 180grit
Step 2... hit it with some 220 Ouch...
Step 3- cruise on over to the 4hundredsomething grit Not THAT bad
Step 4- 600grit starting to look semi-good
Step 7- This is where my CF card filled up so I had to switch to my iphone camera.. SORRY!! What I did was take the 1500 and go in alternating strokes, vertical, horizontal, then crosshatch. I did this for maybe 5 minutes. Then I soaked a new piece of 1500 grit in water and did the same. The result came out quite nice actually. I want to get ahold of some 2000 grit sandpaper to get rid of the small remaining swirls left that only appear in bright light. I may then hit it with some steel rubbing compound if I can find some. I will keep yall posted tomarrow when I get some 2000grit and do some rubbing compound.... but this is what I have now.
Aww no more cute apple etching :(, heres another pic that shows the swirls.
Once again, please don't do this to your ipod unless you feel completely confident in yourself. Don't blame me if you make it uglier than it was before. This is a long process as simple as it looks, and it takes a lot of elbow grease. Once you start- you definitely can't stop. I think the second gens are chrome so they may be easier to polish, don't quote me on it though. Post any questions you might have please!
