Soliloqueen's k87(k67) and k47 capsules

[ElSmurf]

"But nobody will notice..."
" - I do!"

I love following this thread because your commitment (or is it obsession) to detail is just ridiculously inspiring!

 

[soliloqueen]

"But nobody will notice..."
" - I do!"

I love following this thread because your commitment (or is it obsession) to detail is just ridiculously inspiring!

my attention to detail is middling at best if i shipped capsules with dezincified screws, even if they're coated and won't get worse. i need to inspect in different lights. it's so obvious in photographs

 

[soliloqueen]

these k87s are coming on hot, tested them all at my desk. the single sided flat k47s got done early too, so i think i can get everything but the single sided k47vs out before christmas. to most of you delivered before christmas, even. i am prioritizing the k87s though, as the flat k47s were bought with the knowledge that they'd arrive after. if you get your cardioid flat k47 before christmas, surprise

 

[Екатерина]

It shouldn't be dezincifying at all because it's supposed to be naval brass... Troubling. I might need to drop another supplier. The screws are coated during assembly so they shouldn't get any worse but hmm. I need to pay closer attention when I'm inspecting these. It can be difficult to see something like this at the desk when the screws are already kind of greasy looking. I should get a loupe. I'm going to hit up our supplier for the insulated screws in the k87 to see if they want to make all the brass screws too. That would be exorbitantly expensive compared to the current screws but I know them really well and trust them.

in the meantime we'll put them in the witch's cauldron of pickle liquor and anti-corrosion juice we use in-house for the parts that we know are prone to dezincification. it's not like we don't have a procedure for handling high zinc parts. we just weren't supposed to need to do it for the screws.
it's amazing how many small parts suppliers will just straight up lie for no reason. if they'd told us what brass these were, we literally do our pickling and anticorrosives in-house so it would have taken all of 30 minutes to solve this problem. ******'.
View attachment 141536
should fix the problem for now

Good day, as far as I know, the vast majority of suppliers are just agents and do not have the ability to produce, so they themselves do not know which ones are Alpha brass and Navy brass

 

[soliloqueen]

Good day, as far as I know, the vast majority of suppliers are just agents and do not have the ability to produce, so they themselves do not know which ones are Alpha brass and Navy brass

yeah, that's the feeling i get. the supplier that makes our insulated k87 screws is a real manufacturer. they do tons of work for Volkswagen and a lot of other high precision screw parts. They're in a different league. I'm getting a quote from them on custom naval brass screws.

 

[soliloqueen]

fyi, that factory left us high and dry with like 1000+ garbage plates. we tested all of them, but had a huge amount of rejects. i cleared them to sell them off in bulk to the chinese domestic market, so if capsules that look suspiciously like mine show up on aliexpress or alibaba over the next couple weeks, that is why. we dumped enough to last a while. you can buy one if you're curious. they're just ok. it would have been nice to have scrapped them, but i'm already down to one meal a day over this metal factory debacle. i have yet to make a profit on this business. this was going to be my first year before this happened. startup life.

 

[OneRoomStudio]

fyi, that factory left us high and dry with like 1000+ garbage plates. we tested all of them, but had a huge amount of rejects. i cleared them to sell them off in bulk to the chinese domestic market, so if capsules that look suspiciously like mine show up on aliexpress or alibaba over the next couple weeks, that is why. we dumped enough to last a while. you can buy one if you're curious. they're just ok.

You really are the reverse Peluso, haha.

 

[soliloqueen]

You really are the reverse Peluso, haha.

the more european parts i send the more true the joke becomes. now volkswagen screws?? and the new plates?

 

[kingkorg]

You really are the reverse Peluso, haha.

Now that you said it, who knows where the rejects might end up...

 

[jonathan9473]

fyi, that factory left us high and dry with like 1000+ garbage plates. we tested all of had a huge amount of rejects. i cleared them to sell them off in bulk to the chinese domestic market, so if capsules that look suspiciously like mine show up on aliexpress or alibaba over the next couple weeks, that is why. we dumped enough to last a while. you can buy one if you're curious. they're just ok. it would have been nice to have scrapped them, but i'm already down to one meal a day over this metal factory debacle. i have yet to make a profit on this business. this was going to be my first year before this happened. startup life.

Look what I've found on Taobao I guess these are the rejected backplate of your capsules.

 

[soliloqueen]

Look what I've found on Taobao I guess these are the rejected backplate of your capsules.

looks like it! what's the link?

 

[jonathan9473]

looks like it! what's the link?

TAOBAO: http://e.tb.cn/h.T5hnqa5kDrY2qrg?tk=4ioz3yUtDE4 CZ0012
Aliexpress:
https://a.aliexpress.com/_onFXge7

 

[soliloqueen]

normally we test the capsules twice (3 times for k87). once for actual qc, and again with another machine to create the "cosmetic" charts for customers. this is because because our fr qc machine is old and hangs for 3-5 seconds when you try to export charts. this adds up over hundreds of units. we don't have time to do and print cosmetic fr charts this time for some of the capsules (some of the k87s because of how long testing the plates took up and some of the single-sided flat k47s).
instead we just piled them up in chunks using the hold curve feature because it was way faster:


sorry for the dirty comp. we moved the test mic for something else and didn't re-calibrate when we put it back. anyway.
if you want a cosmetic fr chart and your capsule doesn't come with one, you can rma your capsule free of charge for one that has one later after the rush is over. i'll cover shipping both ways. i'm going to ship all these, then i'm going to sleep for like 3 weeks, then i'm going to go to namm. i just wanted to let you know that if your capsule doesn't come with a chart, we did fr test it. if it still bothers you, i'll swap it

 

[Disco Volante]

It shouldn't be dezincifying at all because it's supposed to be naval brass... Troubling. I might need to drop another supplier. The screws are coated during assembly so they shouldn't get any worse but hmm. I need to pay closer attention when I'm inspecting these. It can be difficult to see something like this at the desk when the screws are already kind of greasy looking. I should get a loupe. I'm going to hit up our supplier for the insulated screws in the k87 to see if they want to make all the brass screws too. That would be exorbitantly expensive compared to the current screws but I know them really well and trust them.

in the meantime we'll put them in the witch's cauldron of pickle liquor and anti-corrosion juice we use in-house for the parts that we know are prone to dezincification. it's not like we don't have a procedure for handling high zinc parts. we just weren't supposed to need to do it for the screws.
it's amazing how many small parts suppliers will just straight up lie for no reason. if they'd told us what brass these were, we literally do our pickling and anticorrosives in-house so it would have taken all of 30 minutes to solve this problem. ******'.
View attachment 141536
should fix the problem for now

Pardon me for saying so, but you should/can not really be loosing zinc in a normal "human-living" environment. For zinc to oxidize and leak out of the alloy there needs to be ions floating around, like in sea water or moist oak. Brass will eventually turn into a powdery/spongy texture if left long enough in a ionizing environment, the zinc turning slowly into white oxide powder.
It looks like what you're experiencing is the copper in the alloy oxidizing, which is also why you can restore the bright brass colour by pickling your screws. Citric acid e.g.
All copper alloys experience this browning of the copper. In sculpture casting, we have chemistry to speed up the process, so people don't have to wait 50-100 years for that tarnished, patinated look;-).
It is possible to use a bronze alloy without zinc in it for mechanical parts. Tin-bronze is probably too brittle, but silicon bronze should be just fine. Zinc is somewhat neurotoxic, specifically when casting, as it tends to evaporate into the air as zinc vapour, which then condensates into "snow"...

(I'm not really into microphones, I just follow this thread because it's such an amazing story. I do cast and manufacture sculptures and other metal parts for a living, which is another reason I find your dedication to precision fascinating and truly remarkable)

Anyway, great fan of your work Arienne, keep going!
V!

 

[soliloqueen]

Pardon me for saying so, but you should/can not really be loosing zinc in a normal "human-living" environment. For zinc to oxidize and leak out of the alloy there needs to be ions floating around, like in sea water or moist oak. Brass will eventually turn into a powdery/spongy texture if left long enough in a ionizing environment, the zinc turning slowly into white oxide powder.
It looks like what you're experiencing is the copper in the alloy oxidizing, which is also why you can restore the bright brass colour by pickling your screws. Citric acid e.g.
All copper alloys experience this browning of the copper. In sculpture casting, we have chemistry to speed up the process, so people don't have to wait 50-100 years for that tarnished, patinated look;-).
It is possible to use a bronze alloy without zinc in it for mechanical parts. Tin-bronze is probably too brittle, but silicon bronze should be just fine. Zinc is somewhat neurotoxic, specifically when casting, as it tends to evaporate into the air as zinc vapour, which then condensates into "snow"...

(I'm not really into microphones, I just follow this thread because it's such an amazing story. I do cast and manufacture sculptures and other metal parts for a living, which is another reason I find your dedication to precision fascinating and truly remarkable)

Anyway, great fan of your work Arienne, keep going!
V!

naval brass is alright. we ended up going with silicon brass 697 instead. the silicon brass was just easier to make into tiny screws. i know it's most likely that it's just copper patina, but some of these spots look too disconcertingly silvery for my taste. it's nice to hear from you, thanks for popping in!

 

[Disco Volante]

Yup, if you ever need anything machined in Europe/Scandinavia, i have the facilities and network...
Get some sleep now, it's way early in Michigan.
Merry xmas and wonderful sound to you and your amazing crew.

 

[soliloqueen]

Yup, if you ever need anything machined in Europe/Scandinavia, i have the facilities and network...
Get some sleep now, it's way early in Michigan.
Merry xmas and wonderful sound to you and your amazing crew.

thanks, you guys too. hoping my suffering floor manager can finally take some time off to spend with his unfairly adorable toddler.