Building Steel Pans

Steel Drums, also known as Steel Pans, are made out of 55-gallon barrels.  You may have seen barrels like these that are used to store liquids, usually oil. 

When I make Steel pans, I start off by 'sinking' the face of the drum into a bowl shape.  The picture on the left shows the hammers that I use to build steel pans.  Notice the large pneumatic (air) hammer in the middle, and the smaller, blue one next to it.  I use the pneumatic hammers to speed up the process, and an overall better pan.  The picture on the right is during the "sinking" process.  That  particular pan was an experimentation with a "cone" shaped sink, instead of the typical "bowl".

Next comes the marking of the notes.  After the notes are marked, I hammer on the borders of each note to separate them.  This is known as "shaping".  This is the most important step of building a steel pan, as it really determines the outcome of the tuning of the pan. 

        In the video above, you can see a cello pan that is in the process of getting rough tuned.  In this video, only the two G#s have been rough tuned; all of the other notes have not been tuned in at all.  After it is fine tuned, I will paint it, and check that all of the notes are still in tune after the paint is applied. 

Below is a picture of a finished "C" Tenor Pan