Fuggin awesome!

Screw wooden knobs - it's all about stone!

Stone knobs coming soon. First some italian black specked marble

Hopefully this week.

Love the tigers-eye knob.

Now have a finished knob for my (under construction) DIY-T2

Material: tigers-eye

That is freakin' lovely

That is freakin' lovely

Thanks for all of the wonderful compliments.

The surface of the knob is actually smoother / glossier than it looks in the picture, and of course the material exhibits the characteristic 'chatoyance' of tigers-eye - the shifting reflection effect.

I got a chunk of tigers-eye on eBay for $8 and found a lapidary that fabricated the knob for me, the price for the work was reasonable. They did a WONDERFUL job, they are Hiddenite Gems, http://hiddenitegems.com/ [email protected] if anyone else wants a semiprecious knob. ('Semiprecious knob' - that just doesn't sound right .)

There are other nice minerals - PERISTERITE, LABRADORITE, AGATE, MOONSTONE of various types, and even FIRE OPAL.....

A lapis lazuli knob would be gorgeous!

Yes, with the right casework, a lapis knob would be very nice. Maybe with a nice bright aluminum case. Or, with a very pale wood front escutcheon.

It isn't JUST about the sound, the look and feel of the materials / workmanship bring pleasure too.

I think it's hilarious that there's a SEPARATE THREAD - with 9 pages of posts, yet!- for T2 knob making. If you tried to explain that to a non-audio 'outsider' I have a feeling they'd find it hard to understand....

Actually these knobs don't need to go on a T2. You could put them on your Beta 22, or your Philco TV for that matter.....

The lapidary (Hiddenite Gems) where I had the tigers' eye knob made was fascinated by the idea of a fancy decorative knob for fancy audio gear. They "got" it at once, in fact the actual worker (lapidary tech? lapidarian? Lapidarist? ) who did the work is making a knob for some vintage radio she has. She dug the idea.

By the way, price estimates for the work that I got ranged from $850 to $35. The $35 included using their own chink of Tigers'e eye.... I chose the next highest (second cheapest) quote for the knob made using my chunk of tigers' eye- the one in the pictures- and ALSO gave the low-price guy the $35 (plus $8 shipping) make me a knob, so I will have two to choose from.

Edited March 23, 201214 yr by Milosz

It should be clear by now that all of us are nuts.

Some of us are VERY nuts.

At least a couple of the members of the stax mafia are criminally insane.

My dream is to make the all dht direct coupled triode thing in

a machined non magnetic damascus steel chassis.

I'm trying to find a suitable piece of lapis now.

Oh dear - damascus steel chassis. I can just imagine the etched grain pattern of the layers.

I have no idea why the bits of my brain that control desire are illuminated so brightly at that thought.....

Damascus steel of meteoric origin, I hope!

"The pre-Columbian Americans did develop a process for making copper tools that are harder than steel. However, I am pretty sure that this came sometime after the invention of bronze tools in the old world and there is no evidence for this process having been discovered elsewhere. It is a lost technology. We don't know how they did it. We only know that they did because we have found some of the tools they left behind." http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/11652

I want a chassis made from this copper...

http://www.americanelements.com/osmd.html

Hahahahaha "American Elements specializes in producing high purity Osmium discs......Our standard disc sizes range from 1" to 8" in diameter and from 2mm to 1/2" thick. "

3 inch Osmium disc 1/2" thick = knob

Osmium is good if you like a dense knob...make a good flywheel for a tuner. Pricey....

Knob question!

Any creative ways to do any of the following:

multiple "preset" positions using a traditional pot

"lock" the position (could require removing the top to unlock)?

I'm thinking I'd have a shaft extender going back to a PCB mount pot. I guess a false front could satisfy #2, which is the real requirement. #1 would be cool if there was a way to do it, I'm guessing a mechanical solution of sorts is what I'm looking for.

The first one is easy.

The blind mounting thing I use, make the flange

Part a bit thicker, and maybe a bit bigger in diameter

Drill a blind hole in it, but in a spring and a small ball

Then machine indents on the face panel or an additional

Blind piece.

You could do the same sort of thing on the shaft directly

on the inside.

For the lock you need something similar to

The ten turn locking knobs

Or a setscrew behind the spring if doing it on the inside.

Edited April 27, 201214 yr by kevin gilmore

Here is the second of the tigers-eye knobs. This one is larger diameter. The photo doesn't really do it justice, there's a lot of fire (chatoyance) in the stone as you move it which doesn't show up in a still photo.

Wonderful!!! One of those would look great on my Nugget Audio B22

Edited May 1, 201214 yr by Torpedo

That looks wonderful! Wow!

That looks really nice Milosz. How does it attach to the shaft though?

That looks really nice Milosz. How does it attach to the shaft though?

Blind concentric hole drilled in back of knob; Stub shaft epoxied into hole. Stub shaft passes through panel bushing behind front panel, and connects to the attenuator's shaft via a "coupling" - see photo below, sold at http://www.octave-electronics.com/Parts/hardware.shtml

FYI

This knob was fabricated for me by Master Lapidary DONALD SLATER at NATURE'S GALLERY http://www.natures-gallery.com/

Total price was $50.00 INCLUDING THE MATERIAL! (Tiger's Eye)

And although it's hard to tell from the pictures, the surface is glass smooth, the natural flaws in the stone do not "come through" as cracks on the surface. Tiger's Eye is basically asbestos fibers embedded in quartz, colored by iron and sulfur traces; there are inclusions of other minerals in the stone as well, some pyrite etc. So what looks like a "crack" is basically a vein of transparent quartz. It adds to the fire, and although in the photo it looks like a crack, "in person" it looks more like a transparent plane cutting the material and is completely smooth on the surface.

The lapidary put a nice, sharp bevel along the top edge, which you can see. Excellent craftsmanship. This will be mounted on a polished copper front panel, with a cylindrical recess cut into it..... I am thinking the front panel will be a 1/4 inch thick copper "slab".....

Here's a rendering of the design, the copper comes out as solid tan color but the finished item will be more mirror-like. Heat sinks along the sides, power supply underneath, separate chassis. The wood is figured bubinga, which in person has pink colors to it that compliment the polished copper. In this rendering the knob is black. Obviously it will be the tigers-eye knob when built..... completion may be around September. I have all the parts and materials but my workbench has two other electronic projects ahead of this one. The final design will vary somewhat. For example, the wood front will probably be the same width as the heatsinks instead of allowing the heatsink to protrude.

Edited May 1, 201214 yr by Milosz

Question for the Dr's Wood and Gilmore. Ever heard of "fumed wood"? I was at a luthier (violinmaker) yesterday and started talking wood and she showed me some beautiful fumed boxwood. I am not sure what they used hundreds of years ago in terms of chemicals (nitric oxide?), but this seemed like a very cool Gilmore knob concept Glad to cover prototype costs and I have a feeling Kevin could come up with something super unique.

Edited January 5, 201412 yr by luvdunhill

Fumed as in smoked? I've heard of smoked wood, the technique more than to provide a certain finish, is used to dry the wood so it won't camber with time.