Tragic News.sss - Johan The Cymbal-Master had Pass-Away 8.7.2008... Pls Read !

Dear Bros/Sis

I think at this (Drums-How To) Section, now that DXS Members had grown and that we needed more Activities besides Drumming. It will be great, if we will now have our own - Hand-Hammering & Re-Creating Cymbal Thread & DXS Workshop for this. Drum_Hobbyiest which is our most experience in this Area, please head this Thread...Thank You.

The idea came about, during our CSI meetup at Fu Man home and during the Committee-Meeting. Let's try our best to create - A Small DXS Permanent Workshop (if it can be done in 2008 for DXS Members) - to do your own Hammering, and Re-Creating Cymbals with a Sound Of Your Own Preference. However upon hammering & lathering or oxidising, Cymbals have to look good too, No - but better in fact.

However our weaknessess here is really a lack of this kind of knowledge.

I hope this Thread will pool our ideas and resources of gathering valuable information altogether (Let me think about the $$$$$ Part) later on (I will try my best) to see how we can purchase Anvil, Lathering Machine etc for DXS by 2008, once we get the correct Knowledge in place .... though it's an activity here to have fun in drumming

DH, please head this Thread and we need contribution from all DXS and Soft Drummers here to get this initiated...or maybe get Accent to write to Bosphorus (let both of us go there next year and work at Bosphorous for 5 days to gain a Hand-Ons experience on just Hammering & Lathering - of course we pay through our own pocket for this trip flight) ---- hehehe as suggested by you.

Meantime, let's try this out 1st -


PS: - We need some Pictures of
(1) The Type Of Anvil Used for Hammering Cymbals - What about Hammer and other Tools needed.

(2) The Lathering Machine For Cymbals. (it's not a Too-Big-One I know)

(3) A Diagram for Hand Hammering (I understand from my limited knowledge - that there is a certain Pattern to follow in Hammering)

(4) Oxidising Agent - (Leave that to me) - They are very Combustable Solution most of them. Dangerous.


For now - Info, Info Info on anything pertaining to Cymbal Hammering & Recreation.

PS; - I have wrote to Johan of Belgium to come help us out at this Forum (I hope he would).

Cheers !

Eric

Hi Drummers, I went to DrummerWorld to look at those Pics a the Hand-Hammering and Recreation Pics from Johan, but alot of it were no longer there.

The Cymbals created by Johan are the Best Of Both World - not just Superb Sounding, but most of all - It's A Work Of Art.

Luckily I have some pics of his Re-creation Work that I downloaded from DrummerWorld of his Fantastic Work...............Here are some Pics of it to let us have an idea of - Hand Hammering and Re-Creating Cymbals. There were simply Inspiring...awesome.eeeeeeeeee

Each piece is different and unique by itself the looks the sound....and I hope I could own one of his Work oneday.....

Guess which is my Hot Favourite and Dream-Cymbals of his work from his below pics (though they are just too many work of his that had been done).

Hand Hammering & Recreating Cymbals Updates !

(1) The Anvil
- The Anvil to be place on a Log Of Woods
- Can Have a Round or a Square Head Anvil - but (Grind the Edge to Slightly Rounded Shape so as to give some support to the Cymbal use in Hammering here)

My Favourite DreamTrash

They are all damn nice. Did u manage to take the picture of the wuhan gong which he changed into cymbal? damn sweet

Hello everybody and thanks to Rudimental drummer for your kind invitation !

I'll try answer some more questions after the XMas frenzy has passed, which is a very hectic period here.

Just a few basic things concerning the anvil, which is really the first thing you need (next to a log of wood to put the anvil on of course).

An anvil can be made from a large variety of heavy steel objects. If you want something cheap, best thing is to visit the local junkyard and find yourself a heavy lump of steel. Some kinds of steel are harder than others (you can easily find out by hitting them with a sharp hammer), but even the softer ones will eventually harden after a lot of hammering.

There are cymbal-anvils with a round head and a square head.

If you look at the websites of Istanbul, Bosphorus, you'll mostly see round-headed ones. Mine is a square-headed one, similar to the ones you may find on the website of Sabian( not that Sabian does a lot of hand-hammering though )

The important thing is that it should be grinded to a slightly convex shape, so the back of the cymbal will be well supported.
After grinding the surface, you'll need to sand the surface until it's really smooth.

More later !!

Man this is gonna be a big thread...Especially for a cymbal noob like me...

I think the idea of setting up of a workshop where we can modify our own cymbals is really great, as many of us don't have access to a workshop anywhere, or the equipment needed for modding cymbals.

Wah, if there is really a trip to Bosphorus...It's gonna be a blast!

@ johan, welcome to SOFT!!! :mrgreen: We'll definitely be needing your expertise alongside drum_hobbyist's here.

OMG it's THE brilliant Johan!

gosh it's an absolute honour! been reading up on all your works of art on cymbalholic!

this is monumental!

Welcome to SOFT, Johan. Your enormous amount of cymbal knowledge and advice will be invaluable to all of us here. Looking forward to more posts from you

where's myner the local cymbalsmith?

hi there johan!welcome to SOFT forums,thanks for participating in your forums and im sure there are many of us here that will be able to learn more about cymbals with your experience

Thanks guys for your hospitality ! I feel welcome here !

Special thanks to Rudimentaldrummer for showing all the pics of my work, actually I lost some of the earlier pics which I now see here again

One important thing: learning to hammer cymbals is most of all a "trial and error" thing. This is how I started myself some 20 years ago. Lessons won't take you anywhere unless you have the guts to TRY and EXPERIMENT. Also, each cymbal is different and requires a different hammering strategy to get it to sound a certain way. The key factor is: perseverance and determination !

I've always been looking for a "better" sound, both for my drums and cymbals.
"Better" being for cymbals: sounding richer and more multi-directional than the cymbals which are available commercially.

After doing it for a long time to just fulfill my own quest for sound, people started to get interested and I now hammer cymbals for people all around the globe. Often people send their cymbals to me for re-creation, but I also have a small stock of cymbals which I've hammered that I'm offering for sale. They are on my website in category one.
Apart from these, you'll find a lot of "before and after" clips of cymbals that people have sent to me. Also from budget cymbals which I have upgraded to professional level.

Although my cymbal work now takes up a lot of my time, I've always been an active drummer myself. Playing drums and looking for sound is what drove me to hammer cymbals, build snaredrums from plies of Finnish birchwood, modify drums (like shortening toms and cut new bearing edges), modify suspension to get a full sustain (even before RIMS were on the market.) But hammering cymbals eventually became "my thing" and I now have little time left for anything else.

A recent clip of me playing my cymbals and my self-built snare (and my modified drums) is HERE in a little solo recorded in october 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyBcSaQHZDo

lol somebody call my name? wah sia lah.. the thrash ride looks damn interesting!