How Steel Drums Are Made!

Making a Steel Drum is next to impossible for a beginner! Aspiring panmakers will apprentice for up to ten years before being able to make a good quality pan. The Toucans get all their steel drums from a Trinidadian friend of theirs named Otto "Boots" Faustin. Born in 1952 in a small village north of Port-of-spain, Otto began making steel drums as a youth in Trinidad in the early 1960's, and played and tuned for the Blue Diamonds, one of Trinidad's finest steel bands.

Boots uses a wide variety of hammers, mallets, and magnets to build his pans. He lives in British Columbia, and has been instrumental in providing pans for the growing number of steel bands in the Pacific and Canadian Northwest regions. He has directed several steel bands, and has written and recorded his own original Calypso music. Our favorite is the album "Messenger" he produced for the 1990 calypso season. The Toucans play one of his calypso songs as a tribute to the man who made their band possible.

In Spring of 2002, Boots wrote and recorded a new calypso about the American military response to September 11, 2001, called "Afghanistan Better Look Out" (5.7 meg MP3 file). It's a great example of a fully orchestrated, modern day Calypso song, and includes Steel Drum backing and lead vocals by Boots himself!

The Steel Drum, or Pan, is the newest instrument in the world, having its origins in the late 1930's. Even the synthesizer was invented before the steel drum, making its first appearance as the Theremin in 1912. In just over half a decade, the Steel Drum has spread all over the world, gaining popular acceptance as a serious musical instrument. It can be found in reggae bands, rock groups, classical ensembles, jazz combos, and just about any other kind of music you can think of.

Making a steel drum is not easy!
(See So You Want To Make A Steel Drum?)

There are 3 phases involved in the creation of this unique instrument. First, a 55-gallon oil drum is selected for the quality of its steel. A 40-pound sledgehammer is then applied to the bottom of the barrel, stretching the metal into a concave bowl or dish shape. This is called "sinking the pan" and is the noisiest and most physically exhausting part of the process. It is very important to stretch the metal evenly without tearing it or deforming the rim. Sinking a pan can take up to 5 hours of hammering!

After sinking the pan, the steel must then be tempered to increase the resilience and strength of the metal. In Trinidad, panmakers will take their drums down to the beach and build a fire. After burning the pan for a short of period of time, it is then plunged into the ocean, which cools off the red-hot barrel. This process is called "tempering", and it makes the metal a lot stronger than it was before. The barrelhead is now able to withstand the rigors of the tuning process.

A template is used to mark the placement of each note on the sunken head of the drum. Lines are drawn in pencil to guide the tuner's hammering. Each note outline is then "grooved" using a nail punch and a hammer. Grooving the notes make the notes more visible and also isolates each note's vibration somewhat from the other notes in the drum. It is very important not to weaken or break the metal with the nail punch during the grooving process.

At this point, the barrels side, or "skirt", is cut to the proper length, and holes are drilled near the rim to hang the drum from a stand with wire or rope. The panmaker then takes his hammers of various sizes and "pongs" the notes up from beneath, making them stand out like bubbles from the interior of the pan. This gives the note the approximate tension it needs to vibrate at the correct pitch.

Now, the panmaker uses a tuning device, like a keyboard or a stroboscope, and carefully hammers at each note from the top, stretching it and smoothing the note area so that it will vibrate precisely. Each individual note on the drumhead must be tuned in relation to the other notes, or the pan will not "sing" correctly. Often a panmaker will tune each note several times before the whole pan is fully "blended" together and "all the molecules are running in a line", as Boots says.

Finally, the finished pans are either painted in bright colors or dipped in chrome to make them shine like silver. The chrome bath detunes the drum slightly, so it must be tuned again after chroming. Each pan can take up to a week of hard work to finish, and cost upwards of $750.

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