I Tune Metal - Hello from Northern California
 

Hello,

My name is Colin Foulke and I am a handpan builder and tuner in Sonoma County, California. I was a musician first so the world of shaping metal is still relatively new to me. I have been playing handpans for a decade and building them for half that time. I work with 18 gauge cold rolled steel as my primary material. A few years ago I developed a hydroforming system that was new to this art form. Two years ago I open sourced that system, which you can read about here:

https://www.cfoulke.com/forming.html

I am here to glean what I can and hopefully share what I already know.

Here's an example of what I craft:

Welcome to the forum, very interesting stuff .

hmmm, Hang drum ...
tuning by shape, size and hardness.
Nice sounds.
:)

Very cool. Welcome to the forum, Colin.



I am curious- have you experimented with deliberate annealing, work hardening or even heat treating, especially with instruments that would be played with something harder than the flesh of the hand, to alter the duration of vibrations & length of sound? I'm thinking more like finger picks or thimbles worn on fingers, not drumsticks or the like.

To answer your query - and avoiding thread theft ...

Attachment 47965
Had a dented bronze gong ...
Attachment 47966
In order to shrink the dent, I had to anneal the thing.
Attachment 47967
New problem: after shrinking gong now "thwunks" instead of gonging.
Have to hammer the annealed area to work harden it, to get the ring back.