G7 Mic body(complete)

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fum

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
Messages
861
Location
Seattle
Hey there. This top level post contains all the detail ( I sucked up a couple more posts from the other pages, so this is a summary of the whole process)

Here's tonights festivities. This took me about an hour.

This is 2" brass tube, with masking tape around it for protection for now.

The tool you see next to the body is a pipe cutter, makes perfect cuts in tubing.

The cutout for the capsule I layed out by making pencil marks all the way around the body, and then drew it in by hand.

Cut it out with a Dremel tool ( used a reinforded cutoff wheel). There's effin brass dust everywhere, and I'll hafta take a shower before I ZZZZ.

The benefits of no hair means I hose off easier =)

http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micbody.jpg

UPDATE


Next nights work, fitting the grill:

I chose to fit the mess grill by hand, I've seen people use a dowel to form it, but, well, you know. I cut the inside mesh so that it would completely fill the inside of the body, and then soldered the ends together. If there is any overlap, the grill will pull away from the sides, and ya don't want that

The round top, I just started with a square piece, and started making a dome, trimming off excess as I went. It's soldered into place from the inside of the body.

:wink:

here's what the soldered grill looks like ( you just turn the mesh so that the solder lines up with one of the side posts)
http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micgrillsolder.jpg

And the grill including top
http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micgrill.jpg


Round three:

The body is done (other than some polishing), and ready for the electronics to be fitted.

The experiment was to pull the bottom connector from another microphone, and work it into this body. Here's the result:

http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micbottom.jpg

My pussy(aptly named Mini-Me) thinks that the mic body rocks:

http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micmini.jpg

So total, I've about 3.5 hours into this
 
Screw on means threading, which means ordering more/varied metal stock.

I just spun through a magazine, looked at the different mic designs, and decided to give this one a go.

Dremeling out the front and back really didn't take much time, it was the measuring/marking that was more tedious ( plus using tools is fun :grin: )

Luckily, DIY doesn't require roto-hammers, or I'd be bustin my freak on all ya! There's nuthin like drillin 2" holes through 18" of concrete :wink:

ju
 
[quote author="gyraf"]
This took me about an hour.

The exact same operation took me a whole day... Which shows, that I'm certainly not the mechanical type..

:grin:

Jakob E.[/quote]

It took me at least 3 hours to machine exactly the same thing with a mill.
 
Very nice, indeed! I am currently designing a body using 2" copper. McMaster-Carr is providing materials including couplings and caps. My idea is to use the coupling to attach the grill to the body using a set screw. Now the grill can really be tweaked. McMaster-Carr is amazing. They have a plethora of meshes...the have one kind that you can get that has a wire diameter of .00044 inches. :shock: and you can get it in gold...cost prohibitive to say the least. :?

:guinness:
 
Here's some good use of fine-mesh brass grille material (not a G7-body, but somewhat related):

Mette.jpg


:shock:

I got a whole reel of brass that turned out to be too fine for mics..

Jakob E.
 
It's actually pretty quick to do the dremel work... that's how I do mine. I don't even use the reinforced discs, because the regular ones can cut faster (narrower slot).

I don't use a pipe cutter, though. Turns out it crimps the end of the pipe just a bit, making it hard to slide in the connector. Instead, I use an abrasive blade in my olde radial arm saw.
 
Lookin' ++good, fum!

I dremmeled mine too - worked well but got through a LOT of disks. And it's one of those jobs were googles are essential.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the construction.

Stewart :thumb:
 
I find that without a mill I like to mark out the opening using tape.

I then drill inside the vertical lines of the the cut out using a drill press.

I then use a hacksaw to cut the horizonal cuts.

I then cut one side of the drill line free with a cutoff wheel

Often the other side will break off with a few bends.

Then the big File down to smaller files

Brass and Al are easy try cutting the cheap fence post metal.
 
[quote author="zebra50"]Lookin' ++good, fum!

I dremmeled mine too - worked well but got through a LOT of disks. And it's one of those jobs were googles are essential.
[/quote]

Hmm, I only used one disc on this whole mic, and it looks to have a lot of life left. I've noticed on some of my other cutoff endevours that how you use it effects it's life. If you aren't holding it completely straight (or straight with a previous cut), the thing will break ( and shit flies everywhere =) ).

One things I'm thinking about is making the window a bit taller.

[quote author="gus"]
Brass and Al are easy try cutting the cheap fence post metal.
[/quote]

I've tried to cut some steel chassis with a cutoff wheel, and have done fence posts with a hack saw(for a fence of course =) ). I don't even want to think about trying to make a mic body from one :shock: eek !!

Regards

ju
 
I was using the skinny black wheels and I found that even if I got it straight and didn't snap, I still wore away the wheels completely - about two per cut! I made my G7 prototype from a steel table leg and that was a complete **** to work with - made me switch to brass pretty quickly!

Carry on......
 
Note: This post is duplicated at the top, so if people come in late, they can catch all the pics/detail in one post.


Next nights work, fitting the grill ( this took longer than last night. An hour and a half):

I chose to fit the mess grill by hand, I've seen people use a dowel to form it, but, well, you know. I cut the inside mesh so that it would completely fill the inside of the body, and then soldered the ends together. If there is any overlap, the grill will pull away from the sides, and ya don't want that
:wink:

The round top, I just started with a square piece, and started making a dome, trimming off excess as I went. It's soldered into place from the inside of the body. It helps if you push it up into place, rather than trying to go top down.



here's what the soldered grill looks like ( you just turn the mesh so that the solder lines up with one of the side posts)
http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micgrillsolder.jpg

And the grill including top
http://www.shinybox.com/diy/mic/micgrill.jpg
 
Hey Ju,

sorry if the question is stupid. but how do you keep the grill from falling off the mic if you mount it upside-down...
thanks
Gil
 
[quote author="BR"]Hey Ju,

sorry if the question is stupid. but how do you keep the grill from falling off the mic if you mount it upside-down...
thanks
Gil[/quote]

Hey Gil

the top grill is soldered to the brass body itself. The round piece exerts a slight outward pressure on the mic body, and is slid up into position from the bottom. It doesn't slide easily.

I could tie either end to a rope, and swing it over my head, and it wouldn't move :grin:

Regards

ju
 
I work in smaller body diameters, but...

I solder the top & sides of the grill together as all one piece. Then the whole thing slides in and fits fairly tight.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top