Calfskin, the Zyns I talk about are NOT from 1999 - they are the classic 60/70/early 80s Zyns/Super Zyns/5 Stars. The ones from the period when everything else Premier/Olympic was made in England.

The newer ones could, like Olympics from that time, be from the far east or anywhere else.

I can´t and won´t try to explain your odd 404. I can just say that 404s are normally regarded as the same blanks as 505s with less hammering.

But if you really care about the composition of the bronze - why just look at it? Why not have it metallurgically investigated in a lab?

Oh - it costs.

Jon

The stamp from one of the Zyn hi-hats I found in that drum shop in the late 90's. There are some peculiar laws in some countries, when it comes to manufacturing and processing. The mere act of finishing something in certain countries can qualify that something as a product of the country, in question.

Ok, here are the two additional scans from the paiste article. There is mention of the both the 505/2002 and 602/Sound Creation blanks being supplied from their metal works.

[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/j08xvt.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/2iboun4.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for the scans Mark. Is there much more on page 90? Or is that pretty much it?

Thanks too!

Again, nothing really new - 602 are made from B20 (though of course Paiste didn´t "discover" the formula back in 1957 - they just began using it), while 2002, Rude, 505 and 404 are B8.

I just got a copy of Pinksterboers book from the library - same there.

Jon

A much repeated piece of patronizing journalism, that pretty much gives Paiste license to just tell you what they want you to know. No doubt they have a spinning settup , just for the bells on the China cymbals.( wouldn't just happen to get used for anything else , now would it?) and then there is the Formula 602 , that they discovered 1957. How come Jon; if ,Paiste says one thing it's the gospel and irrefutable but if they say another thing , it isn't true. It's because one of those things fits with your own beliefs and the other doesn't.

If Paiste says they use B 20 bronze for the Formula 602 cymbals , then why do they call it Formula 602?---why not just Formula B-20 or something akin? Thinking outside the box. here; the base metal is alloyed as B- 20 and is prepared in billets----probably very large billets, unlike the roughly accurate weight billets, that a factory that pours their own bronze would prepare, so indeed the cymbals are made out of B-20 bronze, in their extreme infancy. ---but is there anything to say that Paiste doesn't alter the B-20 in the process of transforming those B-20 billets into a cymbal and just for example, arrive at Formula 602? If that isn't true, why is Paiste so guarded about their techniques, trotting out only the most mundane of details and claiming that they "discovered" Formula 602 in 1957? If Formula 602 is in fact just plain old B-20 bronze , then what is the big deal? Why give it a secret formula code and , talk about a discovery.Why would they falsify , discovering a secret formula? MIght it be because it might actually exist and the plain old B-20 has had a significant transformation since it came from the mill, along the road to being a cymbal?

I really don´t want to go into a lengthy discussion, my goal was to ensure that future readers could see that your theories were disputed and not taken as facts and later cited as such.

Because, as you say it "might" be right that Paiste used another alloy than B20, they do after all call it 602. On the other hand, they also "might" call it 602 because they wanted to be different - amongst other things in order to make their extraordinarily high prices seem more reasonable...

"Might" or "might not". I see no reason to dispute any of the statements in that Simon Goodwin article.

Apparently, Paiste themselves, Pinksterboer and everybody else I have seen anywhere says that Formula 602 cymbals are made of B20. And until I have seen pretty hard evidence otherwise, I would say they are B20.

Likewise, I will call Paiste 404, 505, 2002, Rude, Sabian B8, Meinl Mb8 and others B8. Until I am convinced otherwise.

I like people like you trying to find a new view on things - but I need more than speculations and "might" to be convinced. Have pieces of bronze analyzed and compared.

Regards

Jon

Is that a photo op. or do they really use ballpeen hammers ?

I know several boutique cymbal makers and have seen their stock of hammers. They would have a ballpeen in their bag of tricks.

As for Paiste, the hand hammering was done as fine correction after the original hammering for shape (on the hammering machine shown in the videos). Check out the third of the old videos I posted and at 4:30 you will see the hand hammering being done with one of those hammers. It might be slightly different, but it looks pretty much the same as far as my eyes can tell. Ditto the new video (first one) at 1:26.

Reviewing the old video I am struck by the way nobody wears hearing protection gear. The old days before modern workplace safety concerns.

I can't rule out that Paiste just made up all the things which are shown in the video and they have a whole different set of machines where the sheets are stamped out into cookie cutter cymbals which are then "spun" into shape. But I know a number of people who have toured the factory and nobody has ever spotted anything like that. I've never visited Switzerland and gone on a tour myself so what do I know?

Well I guess they would have a selection. In the pic of the bells being heated and stamped, that looks like a cookie cut stack of blanks, they are all the same with no hole to turn the dia. so it had to be stamped out, Right ? IDK.