Hand-hammering and re-creating cymbals

[Johan VDS]

Hi !

I'm Johan from Bruges, Belgium. I'm a drummer and a sound-freak.

About 20 years ago I started getting a bit frustrated about the kind of cymbals that were available. I had been looking for really complex and dark sounding cymbals but I just couldn't find them in the shops. The modern K's sounded too one-directional and sterile to me. I liked the Turkish Istanbul cymbals better but still they weren't quite what I wanted.

So I started rehammering factory cymbals from Zildjian, Sabian, Paiste, etc. to get the sound I wanted. After a while I learned how to change the sound a certain way through strategical hand-hammering and lathing. I've been doing it ever since.
I also found out that many types of student cymbals can be hammered into professional cymbals, providing the alloy is good.

The cymbals I hammered can be seen AND heard on this webindex page.

Some "before and after modification" files can be heard in THIS section.

Also check out some of the amateur cymbals I converted into professional cymbals HERE.



This was once a Paiste 3000 22" ride, now a very dark heavy ride:




This was a 20" Avedis Zildjian crash, now a light complex jazzride:




This was a Ufip Ritmo 16" crash, now a light trashy crash:




This was a Zildjian ZBT 20" ride, now a light (professional !) very complex jazzride:




A 16" Avedis Zildjian crash, now a china:



Finally a "before and after" pic of a cheap 16" Headliner crash cymbal, now a professional dark thin crash:

This thought has occurred to me before. What if I could take my cymbals and modify them to my own needs? Well I'm glad to think I'm not insane. I just don't trust any skills I have. Great job on those cymbals! Congratulations, I think we've just found ourselves a new market niche!

Holy crap, that's awesome!!!! Could you post a tutorial(or you could keep it to yourself........), have you done work with a cymbal manufacturer or did you learn it your self? That's awesome, I have some paiste 302's that could do with a soundover! The headliner looks the most different, absolutely amazing.

Did you need an anvil, I'd imagine you would to use the beak etc. How'd you mount them on the lathe? Is it a special one or conventional metalwork lathe? How many cymbal did screw through trial and error? ............Man I ask a heap of questions...

That's amazing stuff. One has to truly admire what you've done there, that headliner sounds ever so good now, would you be able to, say, write some more about this? This is really great stuff, does eery hit have to be precise, I'd imagine the lathing would be difficult, I have have trouble getting WOOD flat, but a cymbal......... you've really gotta tell man............

[Drummer Karl]

I`m just impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you work for a cymbal producer?

Karl

[Johan VDS]

No I don't work for a cymbal producer. I justed started doing it because I couldn't find the sound I wanted.

I learned it myself from trial and error.

My tools are pretty much the same as the ones you see on the websites of Turkish cymbalmanufacturers. Just a few hammers, an anvil and a large diameter lathe.

Hammering isn't something you can easily explain, it's an intricate interplay of shape, tension, thickness which you have to learn to control and get a feel for. You can only acquire that skill through many experience. The best way to start is with very cheap cymbals like Paiste 302 or Sabian Solar. But don't expect these to ever really sound good, their brass alloy doesn't allow for a decent sound.

Student cymbals that offer the possibility of upgrading to pro-level are mainly the ones made from B8 alloy.

[Drummer Karl]

Originally Posted by Johan VDS

No I don't work for a cymbal producer. I justed started doing it because I couldn't find the sound I wanted.

I learned it myself from trial and error.

My tools are pretty much the same as the ones you see on the websites of Turkish cymbalmanufacturers. Just a few hammers, an anvil and a large diameter lathe.

Hammering isn't something you can easily explain, it's an intricate interplay of shape, tension, thickness which you have to learn to control and get a feel for. You can only acquire that skill through many experience. The best way to start is with very cheap cymbals like Paiste 302 or Sabian Solar. But don't expect these to ever really sound good, their brass alloy doesn't allow for a decent sound.

Student cymbals that offer the possibility of upgrading to pro-level are mainly the ones made from B8 alloy.

Your results are soooo professional!!! You aren`t just a junior member, you have to get the rank "cymbalproducer" or so, too!!

Keep up hammering :)

Karl

[Pete Stoltman]

There's a guy here in the US who does that too. The name escapes me right now but he turns out some wonderful sounding cymbals. I would imagine you ruin a lot of cymbals in the learing process. I admire your skills and ingenuity.

[MuDvAyNe]

dude i have to send you my headliners!

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Pete Stoltman

There's a guy here in the US who does that too. The name escapes me right now but he turns out some wonderful sounding cymbals..

His name is Mike Skiba.

[russcat]

Dude I love how you name them "Undertaker Ride","Mysterious Crash","Happy Hi-Hats." Do you sell these cymbals?I listened to a lot of them and they all sound awesome!This is my favorite one:

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by russcat

Dude I love how you name them "Undertaker Ride","Mysterious Crash","Happy Hi-Hats."

My friends at Cymbalholic.com helped me finding inspiration for these names.

Concerning your other question I figure it's best that I send you a mail. Which I will do now !

[Pete Stoltman]

Originally Posted by Johan VDS

His name is Mike Skiba.

Ah yes, thanks very much.

[Johan VDS]

The clips I heard from Mike Skiba's cymbals sounded excellent !

[Slimeball]

Wow, that's amazing! How long did it take to do all that?

[Johan VDS]

You mean all the cymbals on the site? I've hammered most of them within the last 3 years.

[ege_the_drummer]

i find it amazing that you turned a ZBT ride into a good quality jazz ride and the 16" A crash into a china.

[cdawg_2010]

thats awesome! i dont think id be able to do that because id be afraid id ruin them. nice job tho, you should work for a company or start your own

The hammer and the anvil are fine, although the large dia. lathe...... what's the swing on it? I'd imagine it would be "12... Am I right? I'm thinking of upgrading, so the old 302's (or the school's crappy planet Z's, hahahaha) would be good to start.
Can you recommend any websites, videos etc for learning? You should make a video, I'd get it for sure.
Have you ever tried starting from scratch, casting your own, I was going to do this with a homemade forge from an old bell(bell bronze hehe..)
How did you mount it on the lathe, a mandrel-type contraption, or like a spindle with a thread that you can tighten them on to? Awesome work, once again!

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Chip

Can you recommend any websites, videos etc for learning?

I don't know of any instructional material on hammering at present. It's really something you have to learn by trial and error.
The cymbals are indeed mounted on my lathe on a threaded spindle. Check some of the websites or Turkish cymbalbrands, you'll see some lathes there.

Thanks man, great help, I thought it would be too esoteric too really explain, but how would you you suggest to start? Say, visualise a certain sound and try to achieve it?? This is just something I've wanted to do for a few years but haven't had the cymbals to do it.

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Chip

but how would you you suggest to start? Say, visualise a certain sound and try to achieve it??.

I can only refer to the answer I already gave you a couple of posts before, because basically this is the same question you asked me earlier :)

Experiment with cheap cymbals and you will gradually get the feel how you can change a sound towards a certain predestined goal. There are really too much variables and acquired skills involved to give you a simple clearcut answer on such a question.

My advice is: go for it ! You won't regret it.

[spipedong]

Looks great. I admire your hard work.

Thanks for sharing!

Swell, thanks. I will get onto it with the crappy planet Z's.

Btw, how many cymbals can I expect to mess up before getting a better sound? Because I'm REALLY not made of money at the moment hahaha.

[DogBreath]

Amazing work Johan. Your cymbals are beautiful. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[franklinj]

Oh man, can you do that to my ZBT ride? Pretty please?

Ive always thought about doing something like this. I have everything except the lathe thing in my garage. Man, those are really nice.

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by franklinj

Oh man, can you do that to my ZBT ride? .

PM sent.

I will get onto it with the crappy planet Z's.
Btw, how many cymbals can I expect to mess up before getting a better sound?

There could be a few disasters if you don't start carefully and systematically. Then again, you can't get those Planet Z's any worse, can you ?? :)

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Chip

Which part of the anvil is used for getting a lip on a china?

It doesn't work that way. The china flange isn't bent or hammered over a lip. It's hammered and shaped entirely on the flat part of the anvil. Flat meaning of course slightly curved like a cymbal anvil is supposed to be.

Also paiste 302 are ms63 (63% copper 37% zinc) which is the same as the headliner that you got an amazing sound out of. You, sir, have truly inspired me. I wish I could find somebody in Australia that could do this.....that headliner has the exact sound I'm looking for.

There are B8 headliners too. The one I used was B8. Check the picture, it clearly shows the reddish B8 colour.
The brass Headliners are useless, just like most other brass cymbals. Some Pearl brass cymbals however are made from a better sounding brass variety, these are sometimes worth hammering.



BTW, if you want to see a video of me playing a drumsolo, go to THIS download page and wait for 30 seconds. After that you will be able to click a download button, you'll see. You need Real player.

The video dates from 2002. I'm using my more rock oriented self-hammered cymbals. The drums and the single bassdrumpedal are ADAMS, the hihatstand is an old Pearl, the snaredrum is one I built myself.

I haven't got a cymbal anvil, only a normal anvil. As for the brass, ah well.... there's always the cheapies I can get that may be a good alloy.
I would watch that solo, I'm sure it's great, but I don't have realplayer because it doesn't work with my 'puter.
Did you build the snare entirely by yourself?

EDIT: I just bought 4 14" bell bronze cymbals for.....................wait for it............................... $AU60 ('bout 40 US). Booy yah. Can't wait, I'm going to use 1 as an aux. crash, and modify the other three.

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Chip

Did you build the snare entirely by yourself?

Yes, I built the shell from first grade Finnish Birch plywood sheets and I also made the lugs.

Check the snares I made here :
http://jvds.byethost15.com/.HANDBUIL...ish%20Plywood/

That is AWESOME. Man, you need to make a website/book/DVD or something, that's cool.

Did you make the throw-off ect?
How did you make the shell, steam bending? that's how I was going to do it, butcame across problems. Hoops? I was going to cast my own. But.............. don't really trust myself haha.

[Johan VDS]

Thin sheets of plywood don't require steam to be bent.
I bought the hoops and throw-off.

[Toothbrush]

Great job, they sound really nice.

I've thought of making my ZXT Rock Ride to a ride I liked the sound of... But haven't dared to do it...

Do you have any tips on how you do it?

And beautiful snares you got there

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Toothbrush

I've thought of making my ZXT Rock Ride to a ride I liked the sound of... But haven't dared to do it...Do you have any tips on how you do it?

Please read what I said in this earlier post.

[Toothbrush]

oh okay. sorry, didn't read it all.

Thanks anyway

[Johan VDS]

Check out a new bunch of freshly hammered cymbals I added to my webspace ! Rides, crashes, hihats, china's, a perforation trash...

These are only a couple of them:

Awesome job, once again.

How long does each cymbal average to take to modify?
How sensitive is the lathing?

[finnhiggins]

Johan, a question.

I have a cymbal here. It is completely anonymous - no branding at all. However it appears to be of reasonable quality of construction - it is pretty clearly not brass, it is nice and heavy and it sounds like a reasonably alright rock-ride. The cymbal is clearly machine hammered judging by the (very light) hammering pattern. It has some nasty out-of-tune sounding "beats" in the high end of the "ping" that I don't like, and the cymbal as a whole is not to my taste - too pingy, too heavy.

What are the odds that this can be modified to suit my tastes, without destroying it? i.e, if I take a hammer to this thing do I only stand a 25% chance of not ruining the cymbal entirely, in your experience?

Also, what kind of lathing rig do you use, and since I don't own one is there any suggestions of where I might want to look to get some lathing done on the cymbal...? I wouldn't mind taking a bit of the weight off and then taking a hammer to if it I have reasonable odds of making some improvements to it...

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by Chip

How long does each cymbal average to take to modify?
How sensitive is the lathing?

I spend hours on a recreation. From some to many hours.
Of course you can hand-hammer a cymbal in much less time, but not with the same results. Not sure what you mean by the second question, but lathing a cymbal properly is equally important as hammering.

What are the odds that this can be modified to suit my tastes, without destroying it? i.e, if I take a hammer to this thing do I only stand a 25% chance of not ruining the cymbal entirely, in your experience?

Basically I again have to refer to what I said earlier. Don't expect to run before you can walk. Only after a lot of experimenting with cheap cymbals you'll get a basic feel how you can alter and improve a cymbal. I can only tell what your cymbal needs when I could take it in my own hands, every cymbal is different. But even then I could not put the hammering strategy I have in my head in into a written theory that would work for an unexperienced person.

Suppose you've never seen a set of drums in your life and you ask me to write down how you have to play drums. May it would be possible to teach you a basic rhythm, but I cannot learn you how to groove, swing and make music this way. Same thing with hammering. You have to acquire a FEEL for it. You simply cannot skip the trial and error phase. The only tips I can give you are:

-Make sure the cymbal makes contact with your anvil at the point of hammer-impact.
-Hammer gradually and continously listen how the sound changes. Don't hammer the whole surface at once because you will not learn anything this way.

For the tools and lathe, go to the websites of Bosphorus or other Turkish cymbalmanufacturers. Mine look virtually the same. You need a large diameter lathe powered by a strong electric motor. Mine is 2 HP.

[finnhiggins]

Originally Posted by Johan VDS

Basically I again have to refer to what I said earlier. Don't expect to run before you can walk. Only after a lot of experimenting with cheap cymbals you'll get a basic feel how you can alter and improve a cymbal. I can only tell what your cymbal needs when I could take it in my own hands, every cymbal is different. But even then I could not put the hammering strategy I have in my head in into a written theory that would work for an unexperienced person.

Suppose you've never seen a set of drums in your life and you ask me to write down how you have to play drums. May it would be possible to teach you a basic rhythm, but I cannot learn you how to groove, swing and make music this way. Same thing with hammering. You have to acquire a FEEL for it. You simply cannot skip the trial and error phase. The only tips I can give you are:

-Make sure the cymbal makes contact with your anvil at the point of hammer-impact.
-Hammer gradually and continously listen how the sound changes. Don't hammer the whole surface at once because you will not learn anything this way.

For the tools and lathe, go to the websites of Bosphorus or other Turkish cymbalmanufacturers. Mine look virtually the same. You need a large diameter lathe powered by a strong electric motor. Mine is 2 HP.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated!

Just in the interest of doing some research before I decide if I should attempt this or not... Are there any general rules of thumb you could advise with respect to hammering and lathing patterns and their relationship to sound?

For example, my experience from purchasing cymbals would tend to suggest that very heavily hammered cymbals would be more complex or rich sounding, while cymbals that have very light hammering patterns are more likely to have a cleaner "ping" sound. But what about the influence of lathing? While this would clearly take off metal and influence the weight of the cymbal, does the scoring depth etc effect the tone in any reliable way? Are there rules of thumb that are likely to apply here?

I suppose these are more cymbal *design* questions rather than questions about the practical process of learning to hammer or lathe effectively. So I hope these might be more answerable than just "Hey, Johan! Tell me how to do that!"...

[Johan VDS]

Originally Posted by finnhiggins

very heavily hammered cymbals would be more complex or rich sounding, while cymbals that have very light hammering patterns are more likely to have a cleaner "ping" sound

That's correct, it only depends on what you mean by "light" and "heavily". To simplify, very deep hammermarks will generally add trash (especially to a thinner cymbal), while less deep hammerstrokes will make the sound richer in a subtler way. But then there's the amount and location of the hammerstrokes and above all the strategy behind the hammering and we're off again.
That's what most people forget about: the strategy. It is not because a cymbal is hammered by a hand held hammer that it will sound good. The quality and musicality depend on WHY you hammer in this or that way. I see this as a sort of communication with the bronze. You give a certain amount of hammerstrokes in a certain place and the cymbal gives you back a certain change of sound. Then you work further based on the feedback you got from the cymbal. Experience will learn you how the cymbal will react to a certain hammering strategy. But every cymbal, even every rough B20 alloy casting is different to start with and will react slightly different to a certain way of hammering. A hammer robot can't interact with these differences, it just executes its program, which ever way the sound evolves.

It is generally said that hand hammering is "random" hammering. I can tell you it is not. At least not when it's done with a strategy. The so called hand-hammering you see on the Sabian Handhammereds or the random machine hammering on the Zildjian K's hasn't really been done with very much strategy. It's there mostly for visual reasons. Of course it alters the sound a bit and complexifies it slightly but the amount of strokes is too sparse to really create a rich sound or to significally alter the basic sound of the pressed blank.

Then why do the HH's and K's sound warmer than the A's and AA's you might ask? Simply because of the lower profiles that most of these cymbals have. But the profile was created by a press, not by the hammering. Just like the A's are first pressed before they are machine hammered. So really the price difference between an A Zildjian and a K is purely artificial and cannot be justified by the manufacturing process. Not to speak of the ridiculous price difference between a regular K and a K Constantinople. For the latter is also entirely machine made.

But what about the influence of lathing? While this would clearly take off metal and influence the weight of the cymbal, does the scoring depth etc effect the tone in any reliable way? Are there rules of thumb that are likely to apply here?

Deep sharp grooves add more sparkle and assertiveness to the tone (like Zildjian Avedis) while smooth fine grooves will produce a more gentle and controlled sound (like Zildjian A Custom).

Then there's also the tapering (making the cymbal thinner towards the edge). A thinner edge will enhance the crasheability.

Hey, Johan! Tell me how to do that!"...

Uhm...do it WELL of course :)

if I should attempt this or not...

You should !