Maurice White's Mic Stand

I always thought there was some kind of spiritual connection between Maurice White and some street called White Avenue. Actually, that's entirely untrue, I didn't even know his name until they announced on the radio that he had made the jump to Electric Kingdom two nights previous.... but in any case, I found this cast iron brake rotor on the side of White ave. which had his initials on it, so I figured he probably wanted me to make a microphone stand since it's already the correct size, shape, and weight for a base.

First disassembling the thing. Wow! that's a lot of grease.

Using a punch to remove a bearing.

What it looked like after cleaning and removing the parts.

The bonus loot: two taper bearings, a cap, a nut, castle nut, toothed washer, cotter key, cap, etc.

Now turning an adapter for the 7/8" tubing to insert into the base.

I decided this would be fancy, so I bought some stainless tubing so it wouldn't looks like that ugly chrome plated one I have... this is the equivalent of the church buying gold candlesticks because brass aren't good enough.

Tapping a 3/8" set screw hole in the adapter.

Then filing a flat on the 7/8 tubing.

Connected.

Now tapping some holes in the bottom to secure the adapter to the base.

Somehow, this was the only way I could hold the next piece in the lathe to turn the diameter to match that of the bearing I removed.

The scrap piece fit into where the bearing was.

Sand beadblasting the base.

Pretty clean.

Guess what color White's mic stand gets painted? Hey, that doesn't look like semi-gloss, more like snow powder, seems the paint was clogged at first...

The base pieces connected.

Now for the height adjustment, I decided to make a collet, first turning the diameter to fit into the 7/8" tubing.

Almost fit except for the weld seam inside the tubing.

Filing the seam.

Next before threading it, looking in the machinist's handbook to get the diameter dimension.

Maurice, we need mo' rice!

Threading the 7/8"-14 thread

Checking the thread with a nut.

Then drilling and boring for the 5/8" tube.

Then threading a 5/8"-27 thread for the microphone clip. I want to know the menace who decided that 27 threads per inch would be the standard for microphone stands.... it's not even a standard thread size, and several of the lathes I've encountered don't even have 27 as an option. But mine does!

Now instead of welding this stuff together, I decided to use a brass rivet.

Gives a much cleaner look too.

Then after flattening the ends, I figured I'd letter stamp an M & W on either side.

Mostly successful, though letter stamping a curved surface proved to be harder than expected.

With the rivet I accidentally made an "anti-falls-through-the-floor" mechanism. This picture shows the hacksawing I did to make the collet.

At first I thought I could make the locking mechanism by putting some O-rings in internal groove I turned into the collet and then using the 7/8 nut to tighten it, which proved to be a massive failure.

Then I remembered I have a camera tripod that has a smarter collet mechanism, so I borrowed the design. First tapering the top of the collet.

I figured I'd use the nut to connect the collet with the 7/8" tubing, so I bored out half of the thread to 7/8".

The part in the lathe is the new locknut which I threaded internally with the 7/8" thread. I decided it would be easier to make the taper a separate piece so I could thread the piece all the way through. The scrap piece used for the tapered part happened to be a failed oil burner design.

Turning the taper in the scrap piece.

Then cutting off the part I needed.

Facing the tapered piece.

The tapered piece fit into the locknut which goes over the collet which clamps the 5/8" tube and fits into the 7/8" tube which is held on with the 7/8" nut.... If any of that made any sense, it might make even less after this diagram:

As unnecessarily complicated this is, it actually worked. I don't have any way to powder coat the locknut at the moment, so I decided to just draw some symbols from the inside cover of All n All.

The name is Jupiter!!!!

...and of course, Squashy Grapefruit.

I found some stick-on pads at a garage sale to protect the floor.