Death Star plans data card - zenix's build thread

Hi zenix, your work is amazing. It would be possible insert an RFID (or NFC) chip inside the card?
Definately an idea I've been tossing around, just like my Map to Like Skywalker prop I made from TFA. Because of the way I'm making this, I don't have a way to get it inside, so it'd be exposed, which isn't ideal. I could put a NFC sticker on the back, underside of it, but I'm not sure how it'll look.

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The new gold brushed vinyl arrived and I'm going to try that one out today too.

Here's what we have so far:

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From left to right, that's the unplated copper PCB, then the smooth gold vinyl, then the brushed gold vinyl not yet cut, then the gold painted one.

Today I'll be cutting a new card from the white acrylic and cutting and applying the brushed gold vinyl, and plating the copper etched PCB.

I'm not so thrilled with the color of the PCB, because it is yellowish, and from the references we have it should be much more white. I'll be painting the yellowish area white.

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Painting the board for the etched option

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Cutting new brushed gold vinyl

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transferring vinyl using transfer tape. This is a metallic foil vinyl.
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This material is way stiffer than the smooth gold vinyl. It's a metal foil and way harder to apply.
 
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From left to right, smooth gold vinyl, brushed metallic gold vinyl, and gold paint.



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Paint is dry, time to remove the vinyl and expose the copper.

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Now on to the plating!

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Well, plating is hard.

I didn't clean the surface enough before betting started, so the first plating job worked but looks crappy. I polished the plating off with my rotary tool so I could try again. The polishing cleaned it up real nice, but I also nicked the painted area so there are some flaws in the second plating picture because of that.

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Starting the nickel plate the first time
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First try, nickel plate. Ugly

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After gold plate, first try

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Same order as before.

Then I polished it all off and repeated:
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Didn't snap a pic of the nickel plate on rev2, but here's gold rev 2

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So not perfect, but way better. If I polish it right from the start, I think we'll get an even better look.

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Sure is shiny!

I'm sure I'll be able to get this done at a professional circuit board making company. Their results will look amazing, but it'd cost a bunch to do the custom masks and milling for small batches.

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touched up the paint. I had a funny reaction with the vinyl and the chemicals from plating that I guess I didn't clean off a bit. The adhesive from the back of the vinyl came off a bit and I smudged the paint again while cleaning that up. It's way better than before though. I'm sort of hiding it with my thumb here.
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That's a wrap! Figuring out how to make more of these efficiently is the next step. You know where to look.

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