G7 Mic Body - Materials other than Brass okay?

I was talking o my Dad tonight about materials for the G7 mic body. My intial intention was to build the mic from brass like the site suggests, but my Dad was suggesting other materials such as Stainless steel and Aluminum.

Will these work, and offer the same RF rejection characteristics as t Brass? I was going to do Nickel plated Brass, but the thought of anodized aluminum is actually sparking my interest, as well as chrome and polished stainless.

My Dad get's prettyb into stuff like this, and really enjoys making things look good. He is very experineced machining parts and milling metal so were pretty much looking for the most functional, AND best looking options. Aluminum would be extra light too, but I wonder if it wouldn't be more prone to body resonance.

As per my other thread we are designing the unit so that the body and capsules will be interchangable (removable head).

Shane

Steel and aluminum should work fine for microphone bodies. I've been working with brass cuz it was easy to find, easy to work with, and I think it looks nice =).

I can't really speak to resonance of aluminum, but lot's of mic bodies are made of steel, and sound just fine.

Some people have made bodies from fence posts, copper.

I say go for it. Have him use the metal he likes working with, especially if he's got the experience.

I'm sure others with more experience will chime in with some additional words of wizzdom, but there's my .02

ju

I'll echo fum's reply - there's nothing magic about brass, AFAIK, it's just that it's easily available (relatively) and easy to work (relatively). You can use stainless, sure - but I'd rather work with brass any day. Stainless is a bear to work. Copper is worse - logically it should be easy, because it's soft, but that's the problem. Aluminum is very easy to work with, but it needs to be anodized or painted if it's presenting its face to the public.

If you need metalworking assistance, I can recommend none better than the Usenet group rec.crafts.metalworking. I've gotten a lot of excellent advice from them over the years.

If you use aluminum, try and get TC 63/60 (if I remember the number correctly) This is harder than regular aluminum stock, and it machines much nicer.

But has aluminum the same shielding characteristics than copper or brass?
I just built a body from an Aluminum tube...
Is is 2mm thick and it makes "ping" of you knock on it with your fingernail... Can that be a sign for some resonance-frequency problem?
I didn´t try it, because I don´t have all elektronic parts for my G7 jet....
I´m wondering if I shoult coninue working on the aluminum body, or look for a brass tube?
How important is it, that the grill is conductive connected to the body?
The thing is, that you can´t solder aluminum... I found out, that 2-component glue fits very well...

any experiences pople out there ?

Thank You

Jonas

The thing is, that you can´t solder aluminum... I found out, that 2-component glue fits very well...

Click to expand...

Alusol

http://www.elfaelektroonika.ee/cgi-bin/web_store.cgi?artnr=82-912-13&lng=eng

If I recall rightly, you need a higher temp than normal soldering. It's a while since I used it.

Many of the Oktava mics are aluminium (219, 319, 2500) and there is no problem with the shielding

Finally, you don't need to solder the grill to the body. Screws should do the job.

OK!