Becoming a maker
An honest look at what building handpans actually involves: the money, the space, the years, the courses that exist, and whether there is a living in it.
Making and tuning
How a handpan is actually built, what the tuner is doing with the hammer, and what it takes to become a maker yourself.
A handpan is a thin steel dome whose tuning lives entirely in the shape and tension of the metal. There are no strings to adjust, no reeds to swap and no frets to reposition. Everything you hear was put there with a hammer and is held in place by the residual stress in the sheet. That single fact explains almost everything odd about how these instruments are made: why one takes forty to eighty hours of skilled work, why it has to be tuned and rested and tuned again over weeks, why makers scrap a meaningful proportion of what they start, and why waiting lists of a year or more are normal rather than a sign of a badly run workshop.
The craft was genuinely closed in the 2000s and has opened up a great deal since, mostly because deep drawn shells, tuning tools and spectrum analysis software became things you can simply buy. What has not become buyable is the skill. These pages are honest about that: they will tell you exactly what the process is, and also that knowing the process is a small fraction of being able to do it.
Where makers disagree, and they disagree about a lot, particularly shell forming methods and heat treatment, these pages say so rather than picking a winner.
Contents#
| ID | Question | Level |
|---|---|---|
| MAK-01 | How is a handpan made, from flat sheet to finished instrument? | beginner |
| MAK-02 | How are handpan shells formed, and does the method change the result? | intermediate |
| MAK-03 | What is nitriding, and why do makers do it? | intermediate |
| MAK-04 | How are the tone fields laid out on the shell? | intermediate |
| MAK-05 | How is an individual note shaped? | intermediate |
| MAK-06 | Why is a handpan tuned, rested and retuned over and over? | intermediate |
| MAK-07 | How are the two shells joined? | intermediate |
| MAK-08 | How many instruments do makers scrap, and why? | advanced |
| MAK-09 | How long does one handpan take to make? | beginner |
| MAK-10 | What is a tuner actually listening and looking for? | advanced |
| MAK-11 | How do you move the three partials independently with a hammer? | advanced |
| MAK-12 | What tools does a handpan tuner use? | intermediate |
| MAK-13 | Why is tuning so hard to learn, and how long does it take? | advanced |
| MAK-14 | What are “stress relief” and “settling”, and why might a new instrument shift? | intermediate |
| MAK-15 | Can I make my own handpan, and should I? | beginner |
| MAK-16 | What does it realistically take to start making handpans? | intermediate |
| MAK-17 | Are there handpan making courses, and where? | intermediate |
| MAK-18 | Can I make a handpan from a propane tank or gas bottle? | beginner |
| MAK-19 | Is there money in making handpans? | advanced |
| MAK-20 | How do makers learn, given how secretive the craft has been? | advanced |
Files#
- How handpans are made · MAK-01 to MAK-09
- The tuning craft · MAK-10 to MAK-14
- Becoming a maker · MAK-15 to MAK-20
See also: Anatomy and construction, Acoustics and physics, Care and maintenance, Business and legal
How handpans are made
The full journey from a flat disc of steel to a tuned instrument: shell forming, heat treatment, note layout, shaping, repeated tuning and final assembly.
The tuning craft
What a handpan tuner is actually doing: the partials they chase, the tools they use, why the skill takes years, and why a new instrument can still move.