Plastic case duplication

[blackbeard]

So my buddy has himself a 1970's dumb terminal from a school dumpster with one of those sick cases and we were thinking of how cool it would be if we could duplicate the case in some way. Obviosly we don't want to damage the case nor the electronics insidebut removing the case shouldn't be too difficult. We're thinking of trying to vacuume form it but that might leave us with a very flimsy end result. Any tips?

[futmacl]

So my buddy has himself a 1970's dumb terminal from a school dumpster with one of those sick cases and we were thinking of how cool it would be if we could duplicate the case in some way. Obviosly we don't want to damage the case nor the electronics insidebut removing the case shouldn't be too difficult. We're thinking of trying to vacuume form it but that might leave us with a very flimsy end result. Any tips?

Resin casting is probably what you need.

You can have a look at these how-to tutorials:
http://www.smooth-on.com/pdf/Smoothon_HTB_2008.pdf
http://www.silicone.jp/e/catalog/pdf/mold_rtv_e.pdf
http://www.brickintheyard.com/documents/polytekcatalog.pdf

...except you probably don't want to buy Smooth-On products, unless you want to overpay. I have a pretty comprehensive list of resins, etc, in here:

http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml

[Razor Concepts]

Buying more terminals could be an option if you dont want to spend the time duplicating them. Probably very cheap but hard to find

[blackbeard]

Buying more terminals could be an option if you dont want to spend the time duplicating them. Probably very cheap but hard to find

Oh I couldn't do that! I don't like destroying old things like that. Vintage computers are sort of like my hobby.

[voyager2]

I've got one of those ancient electronic typewriters, Canon I think.
Originally I was going to pull it apart...
But after discovering that it worked and had a full cartridge of ink,i thought differently.
It's amazing what you can find in your Gran's store room...