1920's Radio Headphones, Ear Cup Replacement via 3D Printed Replicas

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

1920's Radio Headphones, Ear Cup Replacement via 3D Printed Replicas
These ear caps were made for Brandes brand headphones made sometime in the 1920's
These parts are intended to replace very early radio headphones that were made in Bakelite. The ear caps are printed in two peaces then glued together, then sanding, paint and or epoxy the surface is smoothed out to look more like the smooth surface of the original Bakelite parts.
Also a couple files are for 3D printing some sanding arbors, one is optimized for a lathe and another for a 3/8 drill chuck.
I have a YouTube video that goes into the details of making my ear cap replacements the video is at: https://youtu.be/-7h8EQaEMt0
The most notable issue is the threads are very fine and are close to the limit that can be printed with a FDM printer. I found using a lot more fan cooling, bit higher extrusion temperature and much lower print speeds helped the most. It seems also the age of the plastic makes a difference. New is best. They'll still be some light stringing at the threads to clean up.
It may also be necessary to adjust the scale slightly to get the best fit. So several printings maybe necessary to get them to work.