I have had an MQ-1 calculator for a few years, now that I have gotten back into it again, and I have extra materials from my sidearm build, I decided to make casts of the circuit board and the keypad for my scratch built gaunts and helmet.
Here we go:
First I took it apart to get to the circuit board:
I melted the solder to remove the metal battery clips without damaging them. I also removed the tiny white sticker from the black chip. I am doing everything so that in theory, when I am done, I will still have a complete working calculator that is not damaged. If I can't, then oh well. I then built up the thickness of the back of the board with clay and poured the mold. It was all set up today so I poured my first cast to test it out. The stiff resin material that I have is clear, so I added a small amount of ali powder to give it a little color. I am very pleased with the detail. It is hard to photograph because it is mostly clear with a sparkly metallic shine to it. On the black chip is some writing that has practically no relief to it at all, but the mold picked it up perfectly. You can see all the green circuit trails as well. I took a pic to try to catch the light at a good angle, but you miss some of the detail in the photo:
Here is a pic of the original on the right, the cast on the left:
My next step will be to prep for molding the calc pad
Here we go:
First I took it apart to get to the circuit board:
I melted the solder to remove the metal battery clips without damaging them. I also removed the tiny white sticker from the black chip. I am doing everything so that in theory, when I am done, I will still have a complete working calculator that is not damaged. If I can't, then oh well. I then built up the thickness of the back of the board with clay and poured the mold. It was all set up today so I poured my first cast to test it out. The stiff resin material that I have is clear, so I added a small amount of ali powder to give it a little color. I am very pleased with the detail. It is hard to photograph because it is mostly clear with a sparkly metallic shine to it. On the black chip is some writing that has practically no relief to it at all, but the mold picked it up perfectly. You can see all the green circuit trails as well. I took a pic to try to catch the light at a good angle, but you miss some of the detail in the photo:
Here is a pic of the original on the right, the cast on the left:
My next step will be to prep for molding the calc pad