Success
Thanks to everyone's suggestions I was able to remove my broken glass. I have tested the iphone with the new glass and it appears to be working fine, tried typing in notepad and in safari both horizontal and vertical without problems.
Here are some of my suggestions:
- Wear safety glasses, aside from all the debris my razor blade snapped off and hit me dead in the glasses.
- Firstly, if your glass is not shattered all over the place I would suggest doing this before starting the removal process. I didn't have too much luck with the glass cutter since you are supposed to score and 'fold' the glass, in this case bending the glass would be prying on the LCD which has to be avoided. I thought the scored glass would break easier under lateral stress but in my case I had no luck with this approach. So, since it is nearly impossible to remove large pieces of glass without damaging the lcd/digitizer I just carefully hit the glass with the other end of the tool (a steel ball). It is my belief that the LCD is more sensitive to stress applied while prying glass up then impact. While you still have all the glass intact you won't have to worry about missing with a scoring/striking tool and hitting an empty spot where the digitizer is exposed. Also, some stress will be distributed over the entire area as opposed to directly on an isolated piece of glass. It sounds risky to hit the iphone with something to crack the glass but as mentioned before, you can't remove large pieces of glass. I would definitely shatter mine more if I where to do it again.
- I tried a heat gun and ended up using a 'space heater'. If you have an extra hand to periodically hit the phone with a heatgun it might work but mine was too powerful and got too hot. With the space heater in place i turned it up to the point just where my hands could stand it and then would periodically move closer and further away from it. The glue definitively gives easier once heated but make sure not to overheat, if you smell anything funky cut back.
- I used a VERY MINIMAL amount of "Goof Off" because it's what I had laying around, can't speak for any other brands. I only used this as a last resort because my patience was running out, I tried to stay away from the edges , if you can completely stay away you have a chance of preserving a rubber gasket that keeps dust out.
- Changing directions of attack frequently is important. It helps in many ways... helps control patience, don't get too stuck on one good angle and keep pushing and pushing just to get the piece off because that is certainly what you will want to do; get in some work and then move on. Loosening the glue from all angles is good, and trying to rotate a piece of glass back and forth around an axis worked. You get pieces that crack off better this way, remember where you have the good angle and always come back to them, but don't stay in one spot.
- About how much stress the LCD/digitizer can handle. A handfull of times I saw some discoloration, the same color you see when reflecting the LCD into light at certain angles, hard to explain. Not a deep color, you don't want to be seing purple. What i'm saying is while I would be working a piece out, especially when trying to 'turn' the glass one stress spot would show some pressure, I tried my best to keep this to a minimal, I thought a couple of times I might of caused some damage but it turned out ok. So... you do have a little room to work with but if you try to pry you will start to immediately see deep discoloration in the LCD, that screams 'damage', so constantly keep your eyes out for feedback from the LCD and stay away from sensitive spots.
- Watch your the other part of your hand, you are so focused around your razor that it is easy to apply stress in other places sometimes.
- Take breaks, do whatever you do, smoke cigs, drink tea, watch TV, run... The more frustrated you get the greater the chances of breaking it...
- I don't think superheating the tool is worthwhile because most of the time your razor is pushing the broken pieces of glass, not the glue.
I have not glued the new piece of glass on yet because I need to buy some adhesive. I was considering the Loctite Stick N Seal mentioned above. I plan on applying it around the perimeter of the glass and the black parts, not on the whole LCD. I too mostly damaged the little rubber gasket that prevents dust from entering the LCD area. Anyone have any luck sealing their's back up without dust entering in between the LCD and glass?
Might have other suggestions later, tired now.
Here are pics, chronological, might help you?
