D-104 Base plate screws, Set of 3 Stainless Steel

$6.00

Chrome D-104 Base Screws

This is a set of screws that hold the base plate to the base of the microphone. The original screws were a black oxide zinc material, If you look at an original screw, there is a little groove at the tip of the screw. This grove or notch was designed to cut away any material in the screw hole. If you think about the original manufacturing process of the D-104 by Astatic, the bases were made then the lugs where the screw gets screwed into was taped and the last step was to plate the base. During the plating process material got into the screw holes. For the screw to bite properly if there was material in the hole, the groove would act like a drill bit and cut away any material that was there from plating.

These screws were cold headed. This is a process were a piece of material is fed into a die and stamped to the required specifications. The material is not heated thus the reference to cold headed. The only way to get that little notch/groove in a screw is via a cold heading process. Unfortunately it’s not cost effective to make quantities less  than a few hundred thousand screws and typically cold headed screws are quoted in costs per million + the cost of the die required to make them.

Fast forward to today. The good news is if your D-104 already had screws in them, there is no need for the groove/notch in the screw. Any material left over from manufacturing is long gone. I’m sure many of you like myself has dropped a screw never to be found changing a battery… Or picked up a project microphone at a ham fest that needs screws.

The good news is we have sourced an EXACT replacement screw minus the groove/notch. We had to make a decision to make these screws in Black Oxide or Stainless steel. We decided to go with Stainless steel. While not the exact color, without the notch/groove it wasn’t an exact screw like or head fasteners are. The benefits of Stainless Steel is its hardness, they will never rust, the finish is nice and our machine shop has the materials and the Swiss screw machines to easily make these.

These screws have the proper thread, height, head circumference and use a #2 Phillips all exactly like the original screws.

They are available in sets of 3 for $6 plus shipping.

25 in stock

SKU: d104basescrewchromesetof3 Category: Tags: , , , , , ,

Description

Chrome D-104 Base Screws

This is a set of screws that hold the base plate to the base of the microphone. The original screws were a black oxide zinc material, If you look at an original screw, there is a little groove at the tip of the screw. This grove or notch was designed to cut away any material in the screw hole. If you think about the original manufacturing process of the D-104 by Astatic, the bases were made then the lugs where the screw gets screwed into was taped and the last step was to plate the base. During the plating process material got into the screw holes. For the screw to bite properly if there was material in the hole, the groove would act like a drill bit and cut away any material that was there from plating.

These screws were cold-headed. This is a process where a piece of material is fed into a die and stamped to the required specifications. The material is not heated thus the reference to cold headed. The only way to get that little notch/groove in a screw is via a cold heading process. Unfortunately, it’s not cost-effective to make quantities less than a few hundred thousand screws and typically cold headed screws are quoted in costs per million + the cost of the die required to make them.

Fast forward to today. The good news is if your D-104 already had screws in them, there is no need for the groove/notch in the screw. Any material left over from manufacturing is long gone. I’m sure many of you like myself have dropped a screw never to be found changing a battery… Or picked up a project microphone at a ham fest that needs screws.

The good news is we have sourced an EXACT replacement screw minus the groove/notch. We had to decide to make these screws in Black Oxide or Stainless steel. We decided to go with Stainless steel. While not the exact color, without the notch/groove it wasn’t an exact screw like or head fasteners are. The benefits of Stainless Steel is its hardness, they will never rust, the finish is nice and our machine shop has the materials and the Swiss screw machines to easily make these.

These screws have the proper thread, height, head circumference and use a #2 Phillips all exactly like the original screws.

They are available in sets of 3 for $6 plus shipping.

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