Hang Drumming

[dlavery]

If you like Hang Drums, there is a very inexpensive alternative you might consider. "Hank Drums" are variants of Hang Drums made from old propane tanks. Dennis Havlena invented the instrument, and wrote a great how-to article detailing how he built it, along with a video of him playing the drum.

After seeing a review and videos of the instrument on Odd Music.com last summer, we decided to make one. We followed the instructions in Havlena's original article. Following the instructions in the article, it was pretty straightforward to make. It took about an hour to empty the tank, remove the valve and the bottom ring, and grind off the welds. Then about another hour to cut out the rough shape of the petals. After that, the most time consuming process was tuning the petals. This takes some patience, some cautious precision, and a chromatic tuner (a cheap one will do just fine).

It may take quite a while to really tune the drum precisely. But the best part of the Hank Drum is that once you tune it, it is pretty much tuned for life (assuming you don't beat on it with a ball peen hammer).



Total cost to make our copy of the Hank Drum: $0.00 for the spare propane tank we had sitting around for fueling the forge, $7.99 for a set of metal cutting jig saw blades, and $2.50 for a bungee cord. A much, much better price than the $2200 or so to get an original Hang Drum (not including the flight to Switzerland to pick it up when it is ready).

-dave



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[IKE]

You must be excedingly careful using an old tank (I have been dying to get to use that icon for a real purpose).

So Dave, any chance we will see you play one of these at the IRI? I looked up the clips, and they sound amazing! Being a Noise and Vibration engineer, I am always amazed by the stuff figured out by raw experimentation. The guy calls out several great damping techniques as "Found this out, not sure why it works, but it works well..." I am always impressed with the ability and determination of tinkerers.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by IKE

You must be excedingly careful using an old tank (I have been dying to get to use that icon for a real purpose).

Let me reinforce that sentiment three or four times over. If you are going to build one of these instruments, please heed the cautions in the instructions very closely. It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you make the drum from a brand new, unused, empty propane tank. DO NOT attempt to make it from a used tank unless you really know what you are doing and have experience emptying, purging, and cleaning propane tanks.

I was assisted by someone that had worked at a propane distributor, and had experience installing/removing tank valves. Yet even with that, we still had to deal with enough residual pressure and contents in the tank to make things a little sporty as the valve came off. Without going into all the details, I will just note that there is a two-foot diameter spot in my back yard where plant life has not yet returned after a year and a half...



-dave



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[IKE]

Thanks for posting this. This is pretty much true for any/all fuel containers.

I like the use of "sporty" in your post. We used "thermal event" in my old industy.

I know you wanted to skip the details, but was that from a "cold" event, or a "hot" event? Both are pretty nasty events.