Depression-Era Microphone Props

by markeike

22K7114

Intro: Depression-Era Microphone Props

I made these depression-era isolation-mounted microphone props for my daughter's middle school production of "Annie". The mics were fabricated from ABS conduit , fittings, and plumbing parts. The microphone centers were kitchen drain inserts. The mic flags were made from ABS scraps with artwork made in Adobe Illustrator and printed on an inkjet printer. The stands were some old bases for torchiere lamps I had out in the shop. I "steampunked" them up a bit with the colors, which caught the lights beautifully on stage. They were a little bouncy from the spring mounts when I first assembled them, so I added some "wires" (sprinkler tubing attached with gold coaxial connectors) which deadened the movement nicely. Enjoy!

I finally added a photo of the microphones in use in the musical "Annie" at our local middle school. The show was great and I received a lot of compliments on the props!

14 Comments

markeike 7 years ago

You realize that I don't run the Instructables website, right?

Advernichuk45 7 years ago

Ok this is stupid i shouldnt have to pay to learn how to make something

Advernichuk45 7 years ago

It says you have to have premier to download the pdf so ill figure this out on my owm and post something for free on a different website

Numbuh1Nerd 9 years ago

Does anybody know what the rounded bits of the outer frame are? I looked all over Lowes for them but I couldn't figure it out.

jgderuvo 10 years ago

At least a parts list would be helpful.

lcoakley 11 years ago

Could you post some more specific specs, I am building this for my high school's production of a play set in a similar era. It would be much appreciated.

markeike 11 years ago

I'm afraid the props were donated to the High School a long time ago so I no longer have them to take measurements. Is there something specific you wanted to know?

jgderuvo 12 years ago

Genius! Can you create a more involved, step by step tutorial?

zazenergy 12 years ago

holy cow, what awesome microphone props! about how heavy are they?

markeike 12 years ago

Thanks. The upper portions themselves don't weigh that much - maybe 5 pounds max each. They are just made from plumbing parts and the center portion is hollow so there is nothing to them. The bases and the posts are pretty heavy though, since they were made from old halogen floor lamp bases. The posts are steel and the bases have iron weights in them to prevent tipping.