messing with capsule

Been reading  bit about making capsules and tensioning etc.
and that lead to this; could I re-skin capsule or make a new diaphragm at home without any special tools?!

of course not, that's just plain stupid idea...
but as I like to sometimes make some stupid things I just had to at least try this
I know that it's gonna be hard but I would be happy if I could get some sound out of it,
im not expecting it to sound any good, but something other than noise/popping will be my goal.

I bought some cheap tbone sc400 that I'm going to use as test mic,
loosened that capsule plastic retainer ring  and took out the old diaphragm.

found some big wima, that I disassembled to get metal coated mylar.
..and now some pics:
First I  did some gluing tests and noticed that it's really hard to get mylar straight, so there arent any wrinkles.
and since  my mylar was on 37mm wide that made things harder.

But first I taped mylar to a table, so it was flat.

then I cut "that plastic retainer ring" sized hole to a tape
and put that on top of mylar

then I taped that(mylar and tape) over a 4mm thick plate that had a hole innit.
so I can put weight on the ring and get some tension to my mylar.

then I put a SMALL amount of epoxy to "that plastic retainer ring" and put that on top of mylar

then I put some weight on it.
I remember reading somewhere that neumann used 120 or 220g weight to get right tension,
but since I didnt remember what was the right weight, I just used the bottom piece of my mic+ 9v battery

I dont have any picture about next phases but what I did was:

Glued a copper spacer on top of my capsules "baseplate"
and next glued that into this mylar "thatplasticretainerring"
and here finished product:

another pic:

so..






does it work? it looks really shitty, but does it work?






yeah it works, since I cant sing I just spoke something to it.

but  looks like it can be done, dont know if this aluminium mylar film last very long,
or how good sound you could get this way, but at least I tried it

https://soundcloud.com/anodivirta/kapselikoe

I believe if you go back through the microphone META you might find pics of Jakob Erland and me doing this about 14-16 years ago.

Tim Campbell said:

I believe if you go back through the microphone META you might find pics of Jakob Erland and me doing this about 14-16 years ago.

Click to expand...

Yeah, thats among one things where I got the idea to try it myself!
I've always thought of you guys as gurus, so I wanted to know if normal person could do this

I've always thought we were normal. Perhaps we're just a little odd...
I'd highly recommend capsule manufacture for anyone lusting after having a headache as an occupation.

Tim Campbell said:

I've always thought we were normal. Perhaps we're just a little odd...
I'd highly recommend capsule manufacture for anyone lusting after having a headache as an occupation.

Click to expand...

well I'm not going to quit my job after this experiment
or get into that business for sure

I understand that it takes a LOT to get into the point where example your capsules are!

but this was more like a personal test for me and change to learn and share my findings.
in a lot of capsule discussions I sensed kind of "dont even try it" attitude(not meaning anyone here nor offending anyone)
and this was my attempt to say: if you are interested then try it, it's not impossible.

Great Topic!

In near future i will try that, i have one destroyed alctron capsule