Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
What to make from old brass cymbal
Roy from Cincy
>Hi.
My son is a drummer and he recently whacked his cymbal too hard. It cracked. Now, I have a big piece of brass to use for something. What's a good thing to make? Some sort of tool,scraper, measuring device? I'm looking for ideas. I don't foresee melting it down and recasting it. I'm probably limited to sawing, filing, bending, hammering, things like that.
Any ideas appreciated.
Re: What to make from old brass cymbal
Dennis
>As a former drummer, drill a whole at the end of the crack and put it back into service. You wouldn't treat a nicked hand plane blade with such dis-respect.
Might be able to fix it...
Scott Burr Ben Lomond,CA
>Drill a small hole (1/16" or so) at the end of the crack then cut a slit through the crack to seperate it. Then give it a try. Sometimes this trick works. Scott...drumming sence I was a pup.
Tama drums and Zildjian cymblas ROCK!
Re: What to make from old brass cymbal
Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia
>Same advice as the other guys, drill a hole at the end of the crack. Zildjan cymbals are the best there are. Well, AFAIK anyway. I'm a musician but not a drummer.
Even if it doesn't sound the same as it did with the hole it might well find a home to another drummer looking for something different. Jazz drummers are always looking for something different.
The way these things are made means they would be useless to us anyway without melting down and re-casting.
OT: I presently have as a neighbour in a rented house a drummer wannabe. I'm also unemployed at the moment (as he seems to be) so I get to hear a lot of him practicing. It is just woeful. He can't even do anything basic like keep time! He's been at it for over four months and he has not improved one bit. I feel like going with a six pack of beer and breaking the bad news that perhaps the drums are not his thing.
As I said, I'm a musician and a former professional. That is, I made money from it. Somehow, I don't think he is ever going to.
Obligatory drummers joke:
What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?
Homeless. :-)
Re: OT drummer jokes *LINK*
paul womack
>
http://gimp137.tripod.com/myfun.com/id18.html
Excellent!
Scott Burr Ben Lomond,CA
>Thanks... Haven't heard some of those in a while...
Mmmmmmm more turkey, no pie, ahhhhh both...now back to bed...
Re: What to make from old brass cymbal
Gary Smyth
>First drill the stop crack hole (no more than 1/16)at the far end of the crack just barely into uncracked portion of the cymbal. It will stop the crack from traveling. The cymbal can then be put back into service but will sound different. If that doesn't work to satisfaction go more than a little nuts and build a workable garden fountain. NO picture so get ready for a mental image. Hit the flea markets and find other size cymbals (I refused to pay more than $5--bent broken doesn't much matter) (they come in 1" increments as to size)and over time arrange them so that you can arrange six or so them into a Christmas tree conical pattern small on top and wide on bottom (my smallest was a three inch kids set cymbal to a Ziljian 20" crash on the bottom. Run a suitable copper tube or pipe through the hole in the center of all the cymbals to form a centered stem for the "tree". You may have to enlarge the hole. Anchor the cymbals to the "stem" with shorter pieces of larger diameter tubing, hose clamps, shaft collars, rubber/leather washers whatever. Keep the outer edges of the cymbals free. Anchor the bottom end of the "tree" stem in a bucket or waterholding container (with connections and tubing, of course) and place a submersible garden pump in the container and fill with clean rocks. Place the whole mess so that the top of the container is a tad above grade level. Be sure that there is nothing touching the outer edges of the cymbals. Add water and power and run water from the container up through the tree stem to the top and (sounds easy enough)allow the water to exit and run over the cymbals. CAUTION: major adjustments will need to be made here. Eventually the exiting water should make a plinging sound as the water forms drops and lands from the smaller cymbal to the next larger one. The bigger the drop (and the longer the distance the water drops) on the very end of the cymbal the better the sound. The purity of sound is of little import, only the pling and plung of the droplet multiplied by hundreds of water droplets. Mine was outdoors but could be put indoors if in a large enough area. Over time the cymbals will weather green and look like something other than old beat up cymbals. You may have to raise the stem and/or add some sort of nozzle or drip mechanism to the top of the tree to form droplets. You may also have to invert several cymbals so that water collects in pools before dripping to the next cymbal. Multiple drops landing on the same cymbal will deaden the sound but still not unpleasant. If the cymbal is cracked water will run in a trickle not a drop so you may have to fill the crack to the point the water flows the way you want. I built mine on a whim when I lived in the South. I fittzed and fussed with it over a month or so, but once it worked I never had to touch it again. When I sold the house one of the selling points was the (singing--like that--that's what I told the new owner it was called) fountain. At any rate it was a fun thing to do at the time and it worked fine and looked good after a lot of hit and miss. Ya know with a single cymbal and a showerhead placed above I bet a similar thing could be done. Try it in the shower to check the sound.
Cool!
Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida
>I have just the place for it, behind the elephant ear:
Re: What to make from old brass cymbal
Dennis
>Gee's now i got to look for cymbals at the flea market.
Dennis
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Nice! Like SE Asian rain drums *LINK*
Clay C in Miami
>
Burmese (Myanmarian?) rain drums
Re: Nice! Like SE Asian rain drums
Gary Smyth
>I didn't know about them at the time but precisely the same idea. The rain drum top is in tension with the barrel of the drum, the cymbals are not. I got my original thought from a short rain chain that dripped water to such an extent that that it was splashing mud and eroding dirt from a Japanese house. The owner placed a large wok or wok like "bowl" beneath the rain chain and it made a sound, but dulled by the water collecting in the concavity. I just changed the concept around a little.
Sides for a handmade plane.
Matt Malin
>I guess you would have to get it flat but it would smooth to a shine pretty quickly. Woodsmith has a kit that uses brass for the sides of a block plane.
Re: Sides for a handmade plane.
Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia
>The brass is too thin for this purpose. I would want 1/8" or thicker for plane sidewalls. I wouold guess that Zildjian brass is prolly .020" or less thick.JR