Keeping Calm and Keep bashing metal

 Keep Calm and Carry on I think is what they say...


Well only four days to go to finish the pieces...so what am I doing posting a blog!

Guess it will make it all seem together if I write it all down, wont it?
Well its turning out to be a hell of a journey this one.

Agriculture meets music?

Firstly I decided that a goose feather looked like a great wind sail...
Also a large fishing rod looks like a great wind bow.

Then messing around...I used a reed switch and magnet to create a non contact trigger mechanism and for want of anything else to attach to this attached one of my Tibetan Bon Po style cymbals to a relay and central locking motor...crash crash crash as predicted.

 Ah but the wind does not work like that. Its pretty  random, sometimes too fast and sometimes too slow...sometimes amazing. Dynamic to say the least.

Actually pretty annoying after a day of it being in your studio, lets run with it anyway.

So I think lets buy a  whole pile of these cymbals from China. What a non starter that turned out to be with lots of crap samples and super expensive new age non leads.

1950's spaceship look..

So its going to have to be a home manufactured job.

Luckily Kathy was visiting in a  blizzard up here and gave me a lead to the mighty Matt Nolan http://www.mattnolancustomcymbals.com/
a gong and cymablista in Bath. He has been very generous in his advice. Amazing sounding gongs as well. Hopefully he will come and see the show in Salisbury (the not windy place!)

Thought I would try getting some spun up (hey its Braziers in Birmingham again, they have done well from this gig...nice chap Terry, they  do good line in spaniel dog bowls as well).
So I tried 16g Phosphor Bronze and brass sheet and bought some nice tin smith hammers and blacksmith stakes off ebay and set to it...
Spinning was crap, not a good sound and weird looking..see this Bronze jobby on the pic. They needed so much more work it was easiest to do em from scratch.
I also upped the grade to 14g (1.6mm) and bought  x 3 sheets

Bash bash bash

My god my arm hurts every day, I dont know how Matt Nolan does it!
I reckon I can make about two a day, three small ones. Use  a bit of heat to soften the central bell.

Pop em in the oven at 300 deg fro an hour to de-stress at the end.

Sore arm central

Here is a pile of them made last week.
I have over double this number now.

Yesterday was rubbish.
I got going really well ready to finalise the wiring design and hanging frames and tripods. Then a bad smell from one of the new heavy duty locking motors. The reed switch seemed to be  locking on causing the motor to burn out under load. Big problem.

  So I spent the day desperately trying to find a solution using a solenoid. Eventually I phoned up Kathy and Graham Calvert... G, half cut in a beer festival was great, pointed me in the direction of a 4022 diode to stop the reed switch arcing out...and Mark has a whole pile of em...sure this is not the end of the ale...I mean tale but we wills see......ahhhhhhh, keep calm and carry on

Here is a crash edit QT movie of crashy stuff in the workshop

Will save the wind bows for another time...gotta get on now.

The wind bows prototype