Rebuilding Broken Headphones (Metal)

Hi guys!

My dog broke my headphone frame (Sennheiser HD 180) a couple months back so instead of buying new ones, I decided to make one by reusing the speakers from the broken headphones. The method stated here is very unconventional, but that's what makes them look different and more personal.

As the title suggests, the frame is going to be all metal. Its made of steel wire and held together by solder.

Lets get started!

Tools and materials required:

1. Broken headphones with speakers intact
2. Steel wire dia. 1mm, 250cm length
3. Solder
4. Solder gun
5. Soldering flux
6. C clamps
7. Metal axle or shaft of 4mm dia, 2.5" in length X 2 (mechanix)
8. Metal bush for axle X 4 (mechanix)
9. Sandpaper
10. Wire cutter
11. Pliers
12. Rubber bands
13. Sponge (scavenged from the old headphones or any other sponge would do eg. dishwashing sponge)

Feel free to use any alternatives, mostly for 7 and 8. Some parts won't be the same for all headphones so please improvise.

• Most headphones come with a swivel joint for the ear piece. (That's where my headphones broke from)
• I found bushes with lock screws that fit the hole of the joint and glued it in, to hold the axle.
• This axle will provide the swivel motion of the earpiece.

• Cut 4 pieces of metal wire, each of length 63cm.
• Fold each of them in half and pinch it with pliers. (pic 1)
• Clamp the folded end on a bench and twist the two wires throughout its length. (pic 2)
• Do the same with all 4 pieces of metal wire. You should now have 4 twisted metal wires. (pic 3)

• Gather the 4 brass bushes and sand it on two opposite cylindrical sides.
• Tin the brass bushes with solder. Use flux if necessary. (pic 1)
• Now, solder the 4 twisted wires all throughout their lengths. This will add to the resilience of the frame. (pic 2,3)
• Form two pairs of the soldered wires and solder them together at the tips. (pic 4)
• Then, solder the two wires of each pair together, to form two members of the headphone frame. (pic 5)

• Bend the members at right angles, at a distance of 3cm from the ends.

• Solder the brass bush on one end of the member. (pic 1)
• Solder the second member on the other side of the brass bush. (pic 2)
• Do the same on the other end as well.
• The 3rd and 4th brass bush is to be soldered at the bending point, sandwiched between the two metal members. (pic 3)
• To ensure perfect alignment between the top and bottom brass bush, pass the axle through both of them and then solder the top one. (pic 4)

At this point, your frame should look a little like in pic 5,6.

• Make a small bend in the centre of the frame. (pic 1)
• You can also make a good curve by bending the frame throughout.

• File out any pointy projections that might poke you in the future.

• Paint the frame with silver chrome spray paint or any color of your choice. (pic 1)

• Add the sponge under the frame where it rests on the head. You can either glue it or tie it with cable ties or rubber bands. (pic 2)

• Refer the video for the assembly.

I did not heed to the aesthetics because I liked its raw design, but you can cut out a piece of foam board, roughly the same size as the frame and glue it on top of the frame. Paint it however you like (I'm not artistic so I didn't even try). Or if you are like me, you can just get a printout of a cool picture and stick it on top of the foam board (Didn't do that either. Just another suggestion).

You guys can go creative and personalize the shape of the foam board cut out as well.

Thank you for checking out my instructable. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I hope it helped someone with broken headphones ;p

Cheers!