Why the tutorial on a DIY Vintage mic? Not only am I an author, I act, direct, and am the Chairperson for Education at our local community theatre. It’s a lovely old building that has been either a movie theater or a live theatre for over 100 years! Since I love vintage, I tend to gravitate to shows that are in my fave decades, primarily 1920s-1950s. We do a Vaudeville variety show that over the years my entire family has participated in and we’ve found need for old-timey mics and my good friend and often co-director and co-costumer came up with this process. Ultimately, the mics also came in handy for our Vintage Radio Christmas Show during our darkest pandemic time, too.
SUPPLIES & TOOLS for DIY VINTAGE MIC
Supplies and Tools for DIY Vintage Microphone. The drain hair-stoppers were found at our local HEB Grocery Store, but can be found on Amazon. The spring we found were at the local car parts store like O’Riley’s or Auto Shack.
- 6 inch Embroidery hoop
- Hair stoppers
- Two sizes of springs
- Silver spray paint
- Mini eye-hooks/screws
- Needle nose pliars
- Exacto knife
- Any pointy chisel like tool like an awl
- Ruler
ASSEMBLING YOUR VINTAGE MICROPHONE
Spray paint your parts. We found a year later the silver flaked off the plastic drain hair stoppers so we now suggest you do a second coat of a spray sealant. Measure points where mini eye screws will go in.
Attach the mini eye screws and begin afixing springs to the DIY vintage mic. We made two different versions of our DIY vintage mic. One with double springs as seen in picture 1 & 3 (first set of picture of DIY vintage mic on stage), and one with single springs seen in picture 2. For stage, the one set of springs is sufficient.
Make sure you’ve reversed the direction of the stopper middle so when attached, it appears concave (like picture 2 & 3 above). Use the chisel tool or another pointy instrument, (a leather or wood awl works well) to puncture the rim of the hair stopper. DO NOT MAKE it too close to the edge or it will pull through. Use needlenose pliars to stretch and attach springs. As you can see the DIY vintage mic with the double springs the outer, longer springs form a square. In conclusions, to finish off the look we parts from a broken mini-globe for our desktop version. For the standing DIY vintage mics, we plopped the entire faux mic around a real microphone. Cost for project tops out at around $15-$20 dollars per vintage microphone.
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What do you think? Do they look vintage enough for stage and photos? Are you a theatre goer? What will you use yours for? Do you have tweaks or ideas to improve on our design? Please share!
Tam Francis is a writer, blogger, swing dance teacher, avid vintage collector, and seamstress. She shares her love of this genre through her novels, blog, and short stories. She enjoys hearing from you, sharing ideas, forging friendships, and exchanging guest blogs. For all the Girl in the Jitterbug Dress news, give-aways, events, and excitement, make sure to join her list and like her FB page! Join my list ~ Facebook page
Thanks so much for this! I build a few of my own for our “It’s a Wonderful Life!” radio play production. Brilliant!
Glad it was helpful we’ve used them soooo much.