How to repair membrane buttons

restore conductivity to your rubber membrane buttons

Overview

Let’s face it: rubber membrane buttons just don’t last. Many radios, particularly handie-talkies and other handheld devices, use these pesky membrane buttons. Under the rubber button is a small carbon-impregnated rubber pad, and it wears down until there is insufficient conductivity to trigger the circuit when pressed. So we press the button harder and harder to make it work, but this only wears it out faster.

Fortunately, the carbon pads can be resurfaced using a silver-bearing paint, restoring the conductivity and greatly increasing the life of the buttons. I recently performed this procedure for the first time, and made a video tutorial.

You will need: