[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] mckinleytabor:
Well, I know it's been a while, but it's DONE!

First, some back story. I carried an iPhone 4 for two years. For those 24 months I had it in a case from a company called Pad and Quill called "Little Black Book". This was indeed a case for the iPhone 4 that looked and felt like a "little black book" notebook. I loved this case… in fact I loved this case more than I did the iPhone 4, which I felt was powerful yet frustratingly limited. When I liberated myself to the pure Google experience of Android and Nexus, I was saddened at the bleak landscape of the third party case market.

So I set myself on a mission to re-create the handmade notebook love of my beloved Pad and Quill case. After months of putting this project off, I decided to bite the bullet and complete it this weekend. What you see here is "Galaxy Nexus Bookcase ver 0.9 Beta". This is of course not the "first" version, there were 2 pervious alpha releases, but they didn't quite meet my expectations.

The problem was, and still is, fashioning the wooden surround for the phone. My very first attempt used wooden popsicle sticks, cut and glued to shape. While this held the phone well, it looked too much like 1st-grade-art-class. My second attempt used a 1/2 inch wooden (Birch) backing, with thin wooden rails glued to it. This looked better and held very well, but was very, VERY, thick.

With version 0.9 Beta I took a different approach. I wanted to have the solid wood look while still getting the thiner overall design. The solution is of course a wood planer, but the overall length and width of the wooden holder would be too small to go through the Dewalt planer I had access too. My plan then was to glue two layers of 1/2 Oak together. The bottom layer would be a single piece amply wide and long enough to be effectively planed. The top layer would be comprised of 4 smaller pieces arranged to leave a rectangle just big enough to set the phone into. Once the glue setup overnight, I ran the two conjoined layers through the planer, planing down the top layer until it was just tall enough to cover the phone, and planing down the bottom layer until it was nothing but a thin backing. I then trimmed away the excess length and width with a table saw until only the thinest side walls remained. I then used a rotary tool to cut away the button, usb, headphone, and camera holes in the side rails. I purposely did NOT make a hole for the pogo pins. While I do have a pogo charging cradle, the ideal of somehow modifying it or the case to make the connection is just silly.

If anything, I "might" look into modifying the wooden rails to install an inductive charging disk between the wooden rail backing and the back cloth/leather cover. I could then run the wires from this inductive charging disk into leads that make contact with the pogo pins, thus creating an inductive charging case. But this most likly is just a pipe dream.

For the speaker, I decided to barrel sand down a small channel from the Galaxy Nexus's speaker to the lower portion of the case. This has actually increased the perceived volume from the device as it keeps the speaker from being impeded when laid on a flat and soft surfaces.

Overall I am happier with this rail design than it's two predecessors, but there is much room for improvement. I still want it to be thiner, and I'm not happy with how I botched the button holes. While the "wood" look is classy, I can always use another material and apply a wood veneer. I'm thinking my next version might be 3D printed with a polymer. This technique would also allow for a more "form fitting" back, and more exact holes.

The "book" was to me the easiest part, because I had it made by someone else :)

My wife is a professional librarian / bookbinder / book-restorer. She used book leather, backing, and cloth to create the 3 parts of the cover. I then attached the elastic closing loop, which is both held together by glue, and by thread stitching between the wooden rail backing and the back cloth/leather cover.

While I made a hole for the camera and flash in the wooden rail backing, I've not decided if I'm going to cut a corresponding hole the the cloth/leather back cover.

The last issue may be one that cannot be "fixed". The overall case is just a little too big to fit into the breast pocket of my shirt. The cases easily adds an inch to the older all length of the phone, a little over a half inch to the width, and only a 1/4 inch it's thickness. The Galaxy Nexus is already a large device, so I might just be stuck having a phone case that sticks out of the top of my pocket. At least it looks like a book. :)

In any event, I wanted to share this with the community and get some feed-back. Thanks!