[maverickronin]

I don't think the position matters.
 
Brass or chrome finishing screws would probably look nice.

 

[mrscotchguy]

I have some wood cups nearly on their way.  I had a couple of questions about the finish:
 
1) What grit sandpaper should I sand the inside of the cups?
2) I am going to be using Tung Oil as a finish, should i worry about the stain "bleeding through" to the inside? 
3) Should I assume staining the inside would change the sound and the whole point of making wood cups?

 

[timbo4321]

 
Quote:

I have some wood cups nearly on their way.  I had a couple of questions about the finish:
 
1) What grit sandpaper should I sand the inside of the cups?
2) I am going to be using Tung Oil as a finish, should i worry about the stain "bleeding through" to the inside? 
3) Should I assume staining the inside would change the sound and the whole point of making wood cups?

 
1) I wouldn't personally bother sanding the inside. If it comes from the woodturner it should be reasonably finished and if its rough as a bears bottom, unless you have a lathe it will take you forever to clean the surface up. You might end up covering it with some sort of acoustic material and who's going to look inside anyway.
2) Unless you are using paper thin wood cups or some very absorbent wood I doubt the stain oil will penetrate far and as in 1) who's going to look. I wouldn't worry whether it does or doesn't penetrate the wood. Anyway, don't put too much Tung oil on or you'll end up with a sticky mess that'll never 'go off'. 
3) Yes I think staining, oiling or varnishing the inside will affect the sound. Generally you'll be making the wood surface harder in texture, so more impervious to damage. Denon varnish inside their D7000 mahogany cups and these cups ring quite nicely if you give them a knock. Depending on the type of stain (varnish or just color) you'll affect the resonating frequency of the cups. I don't see much reason to stain inside the cups unless you want to change the sound, so, as in 1) nobody is going to look, and anyway Stradivarius never stained inside his violins. 

 

[mrscotchguy]

 
Quote:

 
1) I wouldn't personally bother sanding the inside. If it comes from the woodturner it should be reasonably finished and if its rough as a bears bottom, unless you have a lathe it will take you forever to clean the surface up. You might end up covering it with some sort of acoustic material and who's going to look inside anyway.
2) Unless you are using paper thin wood cups or some very absorbent wood I doubt the stain oil will penetrate far and as in 1) who's going to look. I wouldn't worry whether it does or doesn't penetrate the wood. Anyway, don't put too much Tung oil on or you'll end up with a sticky mess that'll never 'go off'. 
3) Yes I think staining, oiling or varnishing the inside will affect the sound. Generally you'll be making the wood surface harder in texture, so more impervious to damage. Denon varnish inside their D7000 mahogany cups and these cups ring quite nicely if you give them a knock. Depending on the type of stain (varnish or just color) you'll affect the resonating frequency of the cups. I don't see much reason to stain inside the cups unless you want to change the sound, so, as in 1) nobody is going to look, and anyway Stradivarius never stained inside his violins. 

 
 
Thank you.  I pretty much assumed what you confirmed.  I was not planning on staining the inside, just the opposite infact.  I was planning on taping off the inside to prevent stain.  My only concern is that the cups are so thin at 1/4" that the stain will bleed though any ways, so should I put one coat on if this happens just for unity?
 
I am dead set on Tung Oil as it is an all natural finish that should hold up for years.  In order to get a nice shine, I was suggested to use 3-7 coats on a very well sanded product something near 1000 grit.  The inside however I was thinking wouldn't "roughing" it up with a 50grit be better for soundwaves?  Or would smoothness be better?

 

[timbo4321]

 
Quote:

 
 
 
Thank you.  I pretty much assumed what you confirmed.  I was not planning on staining the inside, just the opposite infact.  I was planning on taping off the inside to prevent stain.  My only concern is that the cups are so thin at 1/4" that the stain will bleed though any ways, so should I put one coat on if this happens just for unity?
 
I am dead set on Tung Oil as it is an all natural finish that should hold up for years.  In order to get a nice shine, I was suggested to use 3-7 coats on a very well sanded product something near 1000 grit.  The inside however I was thinking wouldn't "roughing" it up with a 50grit be better for soundwaves?  Or would smoothness be better?

 
I don't know what wood you are using but 1/4 inch is quite a lot of wood, I wouldn't worry about bleed through. As for finishing Tung oil won't give you a high gloss finish, but will look beautiful and be highly tactile. I would recommend getting some wet and dry paper start with 600 and using the Tung oil as lubricant rub down the cups. This will give you a nice oily paste which you can wipe away. Rub the cups down with a little more oil and put it aside to 'go off'. Repeat this procedure with progressively finer grits 1000, 2000 and 4000 and you'll know when you are done. Each time the slurry will get finer and finer and eventually very little will come off, at this point you will have refined the surface to near perfection.
Internally I don't think smooth is better, but I put a layer of Paxmate in my cups so the quality of the internal surface was irrelevant. YMMV.

 

[mrscotchguy]

 
Quote:

 
 
I don't know what wood you are using but 1/4 inch is quite a lot of wood, I wouldn't worry about bleed through. As for finishing Tung oil won't give you a high gloss finish, but will look beautiful and be highly tactile. I would recommend getting some wet and dry paper start with 600 and using the Tung oil as lubricant rub down the cups. This will give you a nice oily paste which you can wipe away. Rub the cups down with a little more oil and put it aside to 'go off'. Repeat this procedure with progressively finer grits 1000, 2000 and 4000 and you'll know when you are done. Each time the slurry will get finer and finer and eventually very little will come off, at this point you will have refined the surface to near perfection.
Internally I don't think smooth is better, but I put a layer of Paxmate in my cups so the quality of the internal surface was irrelevant. YMMV.

 
Thank you for the heads up.  My initial set of cups is going to be walnut, but I am leaning towards Purpleheart with a white oak inlay down the road when I go all out.  For now, I am going to run some trials with scrap wood that I bought from the wood working shop.  The guy there advised me.  He basically recommended lower jumps in grit for a better finish.  He also said if you take your time, use several coats (5+), and get past 1000 grit with the sandpaper technique, it should get fairly polished.  It won't obviously be like lacquer, but I would be using lacquer if I wanted that finish.
 
I can post pictures when I get some wood scraps "tunged-up" to show you my results.  I suspect when my cups get in, it will take me roughly 3 weeks to complete the staining process if not longer.

 

[Mullet]

Don't know if it's my recently faulty Gamma-2, which I fixed or my Thunderpants (made by Smeggy), but I'm starting to notice a channel imbalance where the left side seems slightly louder than the right side. One example is if you're listening to music with a loud transient ie something that would cause vibrations the left side has impact but the right side doesn't. After testing out other phones I'm having a hard time believing it's the DAC. Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[Jayben]

This happened to me when I accidentally removed the driver. I saw screws, got carried away and said screw it let's see what this does. I fixed this by taking the other driver apart and putting it back together. Seemed to fix the problem for me. I don't know how confident you are in taking apart something so valuable like a pair of Thunderpants though.
 
 
EDIT: I lied. It's actually quite apparent at higher volumes. I don't notice it so much on my head, but when I put my hand on either cup the left side definitely rumbles a lot more.

 

[Mullet]

After more investigation... I'm coming to the conclusion its the Gamma2 and not the TP1s. Hrrrrmmm... this is a tough nut to crack because I've done everything from reflowing all joints to cleaning things up a bit and the situation is getting worse. Looks like I might take the kitchen sink approach and rebuild the Gamma-2 portion from scratch. D'oh!

 

[Jayben]

Have you checked your bass ports? I'm recalling somewhere in this thread that a user reported his bass rather lacking because something had dislodged itself inside of his Thunderpants and had covered up the ports. Might also be why my Rastapants with stock cups aren't as great as they should be. I wasn't all that careful about covering/uncovering the bass ports when I modded mine. lol
 

 

[OperatorPerry]

Hello Thunderpants community,
 
I want to make Thunderpants but do not have access to woodworking tools.  I have now decided to order some 3D prints of the cups and baffles.
 
I need head-fi's help.  Which of the materials on this website should I use to make my thunderpants?  Some of the materials have density listed in their "Material Datasheet" under "Want to Know More?".
 
Also, can someone link me to some specifications of the thunderpants?  I need to make CAD documents to upload to the 3D printing site.
 
Thanks,
Operator Perry

 

[jschristian44]

Hey Scotchguy,
Nothing you stain on my cups will bleed through to the inside.  They are pretty thick, they aren't thin like the D5000 cups or something.  They should be ready sometime next week, early the following week.

 

[jschristian44]

Ceramics or Glass would be awesome for the Thunderpants.

 

[jschristian44]

One thing I learned though while making these, the inside diameter that is hollowed out for the driver is where the bass comes from, in addition to the bass ports.  The best bass comes from a 1/8" bass port and an inside diameter that is barely big enough to fit the driver.  If you can, make the inside in a square like the driver is.  What you want is the driver surrounded by the wood, with minimal space around it.  This is so the sound waves that go directly from the back of the driver hit the inside wood and come straight back through the driver to the ear.  My most recent designs had the inside diameter like a half inch on each side of the driver, and the bass was nothing better than a stock modded version.  BTW smeggy's cups are 4 inch diameter.  The thickness is about an inch or so.  I used hard foam sheet board to create my custom baffles.  It worked fairly well.  I also tried felt in the inside of the cup, but I felt without it sounded better.  Bass boost also helps.  If you get the design right, the Thunderpants can have a crap load of bass.  I had to take them off my head to make sure I was still listening to the same drivers that were in the stock T50RP.  Good luck!

 

[OperatorPerry]

Would ceramic be better than wood?  Also, I would have find a way to attach the ceramic parts; drilling through ceramic must be difficult.  Ceramic has the least detail/accuracy so I don't know if designing the screw hole into the CAD would work.  If I designed straight holes into the CAD I could probably figure out a solution.
 
Thank you for the feedback,
Perry