@dekay Thanks so much for looking after our friends. Ice 🧊 up those arms, have a bird bath 🛁 for you. 😝
DIY Projects
My desktop computer audio setup needed speaker stands for better sound, but being the cheapskate that I am, I refused to pay the ridiculous price being asked for most stands these days. I decided to make a pair, but without using any tools if at all possible. I thought of different materials, and chose fairly large diameter PVC pipe. The speakers base measures about 5" x 5.75", and I found a very heavy duty 14" piece of pipe online for $31. That sounds expensive for a piece of scrap material, but divided by two, that's just $16.
When the pipe arrived, I realized I was going to have to outsource the cutting due to the thickness of the pipe walls, and it would be necessary to fine-grind the cut surface. I Googled "machine shop" and found one just a few miles from home. Gave them a call, told them what I needed, and they said it would be no problem. Dropped the pipe off with the length specifications (5 3/8") and went back later to pick them up. It was a family-owned business with just a few employees and the owner refused to charge me since the work only took a few minutes. I had two six-inch square pieces of glass that I used to serve as a top-plate, and now I have a nice set of stands. Anyone else do something similar that seemed to be a goofy idea, but worked out well?
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I use similar Monolith stands (2" sections though) for my KEF Reference 1 speakers, replacing wooden stands I temporarily knocked up while Amazon tried to find which black hole had swallowed my first shipment. I part filled the second shipment with 20-kg of lead shot and made PTFE spacers from black kitchen chopping boards to go between the speakers and the stands. Finding the right bolts was non-trivial so I ended up with both metric and metric fine in black. It all looks like a bought one now. |
Don’t laugh, @richardbrand, I use these (two stacked on top of each other) with my Buchardt S400 II and have found them to be the best isolators after experimenting with several other materials incl. spring. I barely feel any vibration coming from the stand below. They also provide some resistance against the speakers tipping over. |
I would not laugh at any sensible suggestion. Those look ideal for separating component shelves from racks! My speakers are bolted to the stands because of my fear of them tipping over. but elastomers have a strong place in engineering. Last week we took a fast ferry from Olympic Park to Sydney, going under the harbour bridge. But the next bridge up-river had me wondering how it was actually built. At the time, it was the longest concrete arch span in the world - just over 1000-feet in a single span. The detailed engineering was done by a 22-year old. First he created a support structure on piles driven into the river bed. Then massive pre-cast concrete arch sections were winched into place, separated by rubber bladders. Once the entire arch was in place, he inflated the bladders with oil which lofted the arch from its support structure, which could be moved sideways for another arch. Eventually the rubber bladders were pumped full of concrete. The 7-lane roadway of the Gladesville Bridge is 200-feet above the river, on rubber pads! |
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