After losing my key I decided it was time to make a key head for my W123 1985 300D. The key had the usual problem of breaking at the plastic. I dropped the key and got locked out of the car for a week till I found it. So I looked around and saw the nice examples here for the billet aluminum key head and the wood versions and the recycled emblem versions. I got inspired and cut my own out of two sheets of acrylic sheet on my CNC router. Here is the project.

Busted key head:




Some CAD/CAM work:




Two identical halves completed.


I made them look as close as I could to the original. My mill cannot do 3D so I just did two simple flat plates with a pocket for the key.


Ready for Glue. I used Gorilla Glue and had good results. It suffered from the glue foaming ooze that Gorilla Glue does. Probably good to clean it off after clamping before the glue gets really hard. Next time I'll mask off the key and the head to keep the surface nice.







Clamped in a cheap pinch clamp:


Clamped it in a pinch clamp overnight. Here is the result. The glue oozed out and foamed up like it does. I'd have cleaned it more had I known how stubborn the glue is when it dries. It lost the smooth finish on the plastic.



Thickness is about right.


I got tired of the glue splotched finish and I grained it with some 400 wet dry sand paper. Looks very nice. I figure it'll get beat up in my pocket. And there it is. Now time to get back to making the car run better. The car is stored at my parents' place and I haven't been able to get to it for awhile. I got impatient and decided to work on this key in the meantime. It came out pretty nice.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles