Introduction: Cell Phone / IPod /MP3 Player Armoured Case

I was inspired by another member who made a wallet out of an old bike tire. I used his base design and modified it into a case that will take your sensitive electronic device and turn it into an armoured behemoth, worthy of a fully operational Death Star.

Step 1: Materials and Tools

Many thanks to ineluctable for the awesome idea of using old knobby tires for a wallet; this is directly inspired by that project.
For this project you'll need:
An old bike tire
Pliers
Heavy duty shears/ scissors
Hole puncher
Pop riveter
Hammer
Punch [to remove rivets you may mess up]
Zip ties, small and medium; use black ones as they are UV resistant
Electrical tape [It was just in the picture...how'd that get in there...?]
Slotted buttons or a fastex buckle or other closure method.
The inevitable slices of bike tire inner tube.

Step 2: Cutting the Pieces of Tire.

Cutting the pieces will probably be the hardest part of this project. I used a 3$ bike tire I bought at Zellers [A Canadian version of Target].
You will need one piece 12" long to form the case and lid; a second piec 1 to 2" long was used to form the belt mounting loop on the back of the case. Be forewarned: the wire beads along the rim are darn tough! Once your pieces ar cut, trim these off as close as possible to the wire, to avoid loss of material.

Step 3: Forming the Case

I did a lot of folding and muggling about getting the right size for this. Initially I had made a wallet, but it didn't pan out as expected; so Plan Bravo, an armoured case, came into play. I disassembled the wallet, and finding the Blackberry too big, called it a cellphone/MP3 case.
Once i had my rough dimensions down, I  attached the slotted buttons for the closure device. I used the hole punch to make holes, then zip-tied the buttons in place.

Step 4: Attach the Belt Mounting Loop

Before you can go on, attach the back belt mounting loop; again, using the hole punch , you can "sew" on the back loop with the zip ties.
Zip ties are awesome; with those, duct tape and inner tubes, you could build a blimp.

Step 5: Finish the Closure Device

The next step is to finish the external components of the closure device. Slotted buttons work, but seeing this makes me wantto make a second case, with a Fastex buckle closure, for a high-tech look. Once again, get your hole puncher and zip tie on the lower button; then attach a thin swatch of inner tube as the elastic closing device. Now all that remains is to rivet the whole thing together!!

Step 6: Riveting the Sides

Now that you have tweaked the dimensions [Measurements? We don't need no stinkin' measurements...], and got the external components added, it is now time to finish it off with the hole punch and pop rivet machine. I punched holes and then riveted each hole as I made it; that way I could keep things straigh as I riveted. You can use as few or as many rivets as you like. Go nuts!!

Step 7: The End Product

This monster armour case came out even better than I expected; so good that I need to make another version, with  better access to the device, a headphone jack access point and Fastex buckle Closure.
This ought to protect your electronic devices against all those everyday, inadvertent bumps and bangs.
As always, I strapped this to my bike, and will probably end up using it as a bike tool case.
Very Mad-Maxish...see additional photos for the Mk II version.