It's a new year, so I figured I'd work on some new replicas for my BTTF Collection. Up first is something I've been wanting to do for a few years, but never really got around to it until Tom Silknitter put me on the hunt. It's Doc Brown's clipboard from the Part I Mall Scenes.
I always thought that would be a neat as hell prop to have in the DeLorean at shows and such - heck I could even use it while working on my own car to hold reference pics and such
As I said Tom was the one who turned me on to finally doing this when he got the Blu Ray set and in pretty short order figured out that it was a Heuer Timing Board. He did some more researching and finally found a collector with an old Catalog showing the board.
From there I was off and running. The boards are next to impossible to find - so far I've had no luck. I did make a protoype board with scratchbuilt displays and no less than a week after I made those molds did I finally find the correct timer (the one on the left) on ebay. Cost me nearly $200 to get it, but at least I had one for molding. Who knew a vintage Heuer digital timer would be so expensive, ugh.
Anyway, I finally got it from overseas about a month later and slapped that bad boy in RTV. With the final castings in place, I did the mods necessary to make the right timer. I decided the LCD Displays were fine as is and didn't bother to narrow them for the 10 key unit. I had the buttons for the 10 key etched and lasered in their respective color acrylics.
The boards were made from .090 Aluminum and lightly brushed. As you can imagine, it gets worn pretty quick, but looks better as it's used. I had zero luck finding a paper clip which matched the original. I ended up just scabbing a metal clip from a $5 board at Staples. It's riveted in place and then the rivets are shaped from the back for a nice clean look.
Right now I'm waiting on new printed and die cut decals for both timers, the LCD Displays, and the HEUER logo on the aluminum. I'll update these pictures as soon as they are in hand early next week. I'm also going to strip and repaint these units as the paint job was rushed and not as good as it should be.
-Gary
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