# Tightening microphone stand clutches/brakes?



## cpf (Oct 3, 2011)

So, this is a problem I've encountered as of late: our entire stock of 2009-vintage Beyerdynamic microphone stands are starting to droop. You can crank the knob as much as you want, but they inevitably head towards the floor. Does anyone know of a way to fix this? 

I took apart one of the assemblies, and blew/wiped the rubber dust off the two pads that are sandwiched between the two sections, and it sort of helped, but only to the degree of slowing down the rate of descent, so I guess too much rubber was lost there.


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## FMEng (Oct 4, 2011)

About all you can do is replace the clutch parts. Those stands look like they are made by Konig and Meyer. If you can't order parts from Beyer, then you should be able to use K-M parts, which I believe are available.


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## waynehoskins (Oct 4, 2011)

I had that happen to a pretty-new K&M boom arm a year or two ago. You would expect the pad wear to be from people adjusting the boom while it was tightened; do that too many times and it wears away enough of the pad to not hold.

That's one advantage of a counterweighted boom, the pivot point doesn't have to support the entire cantilevered load of the mic on the arm since it's balanced to some degree on the other side.


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## FMEng (Oct 4, 2011)

waynehoskins said:


> I had that happen to a pretty-new K&M boom arm a year or two ago. You would expect the pad wear to be from people adjusting the boom while it was tightened; do that too many times and it wears away enough of the pad to not hold.
> 
> That's one advantage of a counterweighted boom, the pivot point doesn't have to support the entire cantilevered load of the mic on the arm since it's balanced to some degree on the other side.


 
Who makes a quality counter weighted boom these days? It has been many years since I looked at Atlas booms. Back then, they still clamped onto the vertical stand's locking ring which was total junk. I haven't bought anything but K-M since.

Oh, wait, I did buy a few Ultimate tripod leg stands. They were nice and light and the clutches were solid, but the stupid things are not straight. Every one of them has a lean which looks bad on stage. They lost a customer.


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## waynehoskins (Oct 4, 2011)

FMEng said:


> Who makes a quality counter weighted boom these days? It has been many years since I looked at Atlas booms. Back then, they still clamped onto the vertical stand's locking ring which was total junk. I haven't bought anything but K-M since.


 
All I've seen are the ancient Atlases. I'd think Atlas might still make them.

I'm a K&M fan too, perhaps I just got a bad one. Or the church has a monkey I don't know about.  Another decent option, from what I've seen, is Atlas's economy line. They're inexpensive and pretty solid for "economy", though the plastic boom end caps do tend to fall off.


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## derekleffew (Oct 4, 2011)

(Probably showing my age here.) Who is this K&M? Did they always make the boom arm for AKG? This has been an industry standard for the past 25 years, at least.


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## waynehoskins (Oct 4, 2011)

K&M is Konig & Meyer, from Germany. I've known of them since the late '90s, and at least then I know they made stands for AKG. That boom arm is a K&M 211/1, apparently rebranded for AKG.


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## Jsamuels201 (Oct 4, 2011)

Atlas still makes pretty good counterweighted booms, my school bought a few of them a couple years ago and they're still in good shape. We did have to JB weld one of the counterweights after the screw that holds it on to the boom stripped out though.


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## FMEng (Oct 5, 2011)

waynehoskins said:


> K&M is Konig & Meyer, from Germany. I've known of them since the late '90s, and at least then I know they made stands for AKG. That boom arm is a K&M 211/1, apparently rebranded for AKG.


 
Yup, I have K&M stands dating back to the late '70s at the radio station. Granted, we don't use them too often. I also know local PA guy who has a fleet 20 year old K&Ms that he uses for every gig.


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## N.Webber (Oct 6, 2011)

Some of my K&M boom stands are about 15 years old! 
Truly great stands, but every once in a while I also encounter this friction loss problem.

I found the cause to be the small rubber shavings that are produced when the clutch is rotated while tightened. 
These stay on the rubber disk surface(s) reducing full surface contact, thus lowering the friction.

The simple fix: take out the rubber discs, clean both faces of each (a fine steel brush does it best),
reassemble …and congratulate yourself for the ‘new’ clutch.


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## FMEng (Oct 7, 2011)

Thanks for the tip! That will come in very handy.



N.Webber said:


> Some of my K&M boom stands are about 15 years old!
> Truly great stands, but every once in a while I also encounter this friction loss problem.
> 
> I found the cause to be the small rubber shavings that are produced when the clutch is rotated while tightened.
> ...


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