Cymbal making

Modern cymbal making comprises many different techniques, from traditional hand methods to completely automated mass-production.

Historically, cymbals were made from individually cast cymbal blanks which were then hot-forged, often with many annealing processes, to form the rough shape of the cymbal.

The finishing stages consisted of cold-hammering to unevenly harden the metal, then turning on a lathe to reduce the thickness, and then often a final cold hammering.

The hot and cold hammering were all performed entirely by a highly skilled hand and was a labour-intensive process. The only machine to touch the cymbal was a hand-held lathe.

This lathing step could decrease the weight of the cymbal by two-thirds or more, and resulted in further uneven hardening which produces much of the tone of a traditionally made cymbal. This effect was deliberately enhanced by use of a coarse lathe tool, and sometimes by a very limited final polishing, leaving the lathe tool marks as "tone grooves". Traditional cymbals are lathed over the entire surface top and bottom.

Each stage of this process has been modified by the use of recent technology.

One of the main effects has been that far closer manufacturing tolerances can be achieved, resulting in more consistent sounding cymbals.

This has also provided the opportunity to omit some of the traditional steps completely, and so unlathed, partly lathed, and even unhammered cymbals have entered the catalogs of major makers, and achieved widespread acceptance.

The more unusual of these is rotocasting, in which the mold is spun to force metal into the details of the mold by centrifugal force. This allows the hot forging step to be reduced or even omitted, as the resulting casting can be made far closer to the final shape of the cymbal, including its bell and taper. It is an expensive process used for a few top quality bell bronze cymbals.

Many modern cymbals are stamped or, less commonly, hammered from sheet metal. It is a widely held misconception that only malleable alloys can be cold rolled into sheets. The historical and current production 602 line cymbals and the historical Sound Creation cymbals, both from the major manufacturer Paiste, and the current production M-Series cymbals from Meinl are made from sheet bell bronze with a 20% Tin content. Nevertheless, the term "sheet metal cymbals" tends to refer to cymbals produced from all other common cymbal alloys as opposed to bell bronze.

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Wikipedia