Deathmetalconga
Platinum Member
Friggin' awesome! One of the cooler things I've seen someone do around here.
Interesting approach.Arky. Splendid. Man after my own heart.
I use a saber saw with a metal blade on mine. Cuts through quite easily. Then, yeah, the filing of the edges takes time, but I get them round and smooth.
The splashes I got out of those cracked cymbals tend to sound aggressive. I was thinking they're too aggressive for my taste but they could be used for stacks or might come handy at a later time when miked up or in a heavier context. So I might keep them. Or cut them down some more and make more bells.The thing I noticed is when you cut down a ride and the stress on the bow is so great the edges turn up and you get that wild, sharp chinese sound in the ring of the bell. One of my favorites has been a 12" B8Pro spash I cut down to a 10" then popped it inside out/ Bites like a junkyard dog.
I think I'm in for this in the future - e.g. a foot-operated cowbell (or framedrum) would be nice. Buying all that stuff is expensive and sometimes you need specific solutions that aren't readily available on the market. Plus, making one's own stuff is fun and a way to utilize leftover material or stuff that would be useless otherwise and bound to get discarded.I've been making DIY mounts for ... man, 30 years. Home Depot and hardware stores. A drummer's best friend.
I was lucky to sell about half of it off ebay. Still have some leftover stuff. I cut a lot of those into dozens of 'mini bell' size chunks as I was going to experiment with hand hammering but haven't done anything yet. As those are 'grouped' into similar sizes they could be arranged into oversized tambourines.What do you do with the pieces left over? I've made really nice sounding wind chimes from some.
I also made a 'ribbon crasher' from some Sound Formula pieces, which works great. I want to make some bigger ones, too. I just take a hack saw to the cymbal pieces, saw a little, bend and snap them, and file the edges smooth. I stack them, in opposite directions, on a DIY mount.
No, I never had a jig. Which would be quite nice for that kind of work though. What I've been doing - and actually, this is consuming more time than the cutting itself - is marking the diameter prior to cutting. I've been doing this pretty old-fashioned - using a ruler, measuring from the center point (which because of the center hole doesn't really exist so you need a good eye and the shape might not come out perfectly round anyway) and marking the to-be-cut outlines. Any irregularities from less-than-perfect cutting would have to be optimized during the sanding stage.I was wondering if you had a video or any progress pictures on how you are able to get those cuts. Do you use a jig with your dremel?
Andy - yes, there's those sample sounds from the first 10 bells I made, pretty early in the thread. It's been awhile. I should really create some new audio files or at least make a video and demonstrate a good deal of the existing bell collection.Just wanted to chime in & say this is most inspirational Arky. A lot of love gone into those bells. Love it. Any chance of a video/audio file?
To save material on the cut off wheels (which will get some wear anyway), I cut in straight lines when working on the holes - like in the pic. With more thickness, the wheels will have some serious wear and get reduced in size quickly. That's why I tried cutting in straight lines and it worked out. I would use dremel sanding bits afterwards to rework the outlines of the holes. It's still quite some work.Super inspiring, actually. I have a 19" TRX crash that I just bought used and found a lathing crack in it after a month, so I think I'm going to attempt O-zoning it with a Dremel and these. Definitely going to double check my angles on it, but luckily the crack is in the perfect place to do this and I could actually use it after as well. Any tips?