Leroy 'Ali' Williams was a beast at sinkin' with accuracy. He said, "¥a have to be careful. Da pan, it never bus in the beginnin' of a sink. Always after 7, 8 hours. The metal, it never forget. If you hit the edge of the hammer early it wouldn't bus early. But once you get down down to 7, 7 an a half, 8 inches. Then it bus, after all that work!"Guidance.
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He stopped using a sledge hammer just after I met him in 1997. Since then he had used a hand held pneumatic jackhammer with a wooden ball covered with leather. This provides a super consistent strike. He would have the barrel shoved up into the corner of a room with blankets covering the walls. He worked in concentric circles. Funny he told me not to tell anyone about this method because of how effective it was. It enabled him to continue sinking into the last years of his life. God rest his soul, you all can have at it now.
If you sink barrels you would see how a press itself would not work. What would work, and I would love to see it in action, is a contraption that clamped down on the lid and shoots round shaped 2" rods into the face with some equation that ensures the stretch over the face is consistent. I believe it can be done. To not get too specific, there is a method of stretching the metal that requires constant Quality Control. You hit the hammer very aggressively closer to the rim and softer nearer the middle early. Then, as you get the sink lower, you smooth the rim area and strike aggressively the next level down, and continue this process until you reach about 6.5 inches. Then you start drawing out your notes and bringing their shapes on the smooth rim area. It's a very sensitive process. To try and machine the sink at the beginning you would sacrifice a degree of craftsmanship integral to the final product. Similar to the fine detail taken to produce stringed instruments. Wow, this is making me want to get back on a sink soon!! I posted this picture in memory of my late great teacher and pan builder/tuner extraordinaire who died just last week. He made pans for Othello and Boogsie. You can hear he and Othello playing his pans on 'Opus Pocus' with Jaco Pastorius. Ali is on the doubles. Great tune. Enjoy.
Actually, you need to spot a potential crack as early as possible and circle it. Then avoid hitting it with too much force always keeping it down. It's possible to keep it from opening up sometimes. Depending on the guage of steel, you often see the middle lowest part have a whole series of inconsistency, kind of like the look of leather. This is not a problem. For the pan buyer, welded cracks do not denote poor quality. Listen to the pan and listen to the note with the weld. It could be just fine. I have a pan from Ali that has three or four welds in it. It comes from a 20 guage barrel which is unusually thin. But it allowed him to bring the lowest note all the way down to an A. It sounds so sweet, and the notes with welds are some of the sweetest sounding notes I have ever heard. Certainly not to say that welds are preferred.
Conversely, if you are a builder/tuner, I learned from him that you use brass for the weld and not steel. Steel, being the same consistency of the metal, and applied in thicker amounts makes the note very difficult to work with. Brass is a softer metal and will manipulate more easily during the tuning process.
I know that they weld the cracks if they are small and the notes can be tuned . If not then I suppose that it has to be discarded . This I know for I once asked a Tuner about purchasing a Tenor Pan and he told me that I could have gotten one that had the welds on it at a cheaper price .
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Brenda, you are quite welcome. I'm itching to sink one soon!! I'll let you know how it comes out.
He stopped using a sledge hammer just after I met him in 1997. Since then he had used a hand held pneumatic jackhammer with a wooden ball covered with leather. This provides a super consistent strike. He would have the barrel shoved up into the corner of a room with blankets covering the walls. He worked in concentric circles. Funny he told me not to tell anyone about this method because of how effective it was. It enabled him to continue sinking into the last years of his life. God rest his soul, you all can have at it now.
If you sink barrels you would see how a press itself would not work. What would work, and I would love to see it in action, is a contraption that clamped down on the lid and shoots round shaped 2" rods into the face with some equation that ensures the stretch over the face is consistent. I believe it can be done. To not get too specific, there is a method of stretching the metal that requires constant Quality Control. You hit the hammer very aggressively closer to the rim and softer nearer the middle early. Then, as you get the sink lower, you smooth the rim area and strike aggressively the next level down, and continue this process until you reach about 6.5 inches. Then you start drawing out your notes and bringing their shapes on the smooth rim area. It's a very sensitive process. To try and machine the sink at the beginning you would sacrifice a degree of craftsmanship integral to the final product. Similar to the fine detail taken to produce stringed instruments. Wow, this is making me want to get back on a sink soon!! I posted this picture in memory of my late great teacher and pan builder/tuner extraordinaire who died just last week. He made pans for Othello and Boogsie. You can hear he and Othello playing his pans on 'Opus Pocus' with Jaco Pastorius. Ali is on the doubles. Great tune. Enjoy.
Actually, you need to spot a potential crack as early as possible and circle it. Then avoid hitting it with too much force always keeping it down. It's possible to keep it from opening up sometimes. Depending on the guage of steel, you often see the middle lowest part have a whole series of inconsistency, kind of like the look of leather. This is not a problem. For the pan buyer, welded cracks do not denote poor quality. Listen to the pan and listen to the note with the weld. It could be just fine. I have a pan from Ali that has three or four welds in it. It comes from a 20 guage barrel which is unusually thin. But it allowed him to bring the lowest note all the way down to an A. It sounds so sweet, and the notes with welds are some of the sweetest sounding notes I have ever heard. Certainly not to say that welds are preferred.
Conversely, if you are a builder/tuner, I learned from him that you use brass for the weld and not steel. Steel, being the same consistency of the metal, and applied in thicker amounts makes the note very difficult to work with. Brass is a softer metal and will manipulate more easily during the tuning process.
I know that they weld the cracks if they are small and the notes can be tuned . If not then I suppose that it has to be discarded . This I know for I once asked a Tuner about purchasing a Tenor Pan and he told me that I could have gotten one that had the welds on it at a cheaper price .