Fablab
updated 19/12/2024, updates about point #1 legal disputes.
Our Shellopan cooperative has been built up since 2010 thanks to a lot of sharing. Continuing in this spirit of sharing with all those who have helped us to progress, we have chosen to publish the information that we feel is most useful to anyone interested in handpan making.
- Is the handpan a copy of the PANArt Hang or has it become emancipated from its initial inspiration? Current status of legal disputes and prospects... (updated 19/12/2024)
- Shells, the starting point for any handpan making project
- About nitriding steel
- The physics of materials and the importance of a scientific approach
- The workshop and tools
- Protection: individual equipment
- Reducing vibrations during pneumatic hammering (updated 24/10/2024)
- Video resources
1) Is the handpan a copy of the PANArt Hang or has it become emancipated from its initial inspiration? Current status of legal disputes and prospects... (updated on 19/12/2024)
Faced with the many stories and legends surrounding the conflict between PANArt and the handpan community, it seems important to me (Matthieu Shellopan) to write so as not to let too many legends take the place of history... In order to contextualise the elements of analysis that I might have to formulate, I am writing as a professional in the handpan environment. My activity as a handpan maker is based in France and was totally inspired by my encounters at PANArt, which began nearly 20 years ago. I was also the first manufacturer/reseller of raw material (shellopan shells) in Europe between 2014 and 2018. Finally, I am totally independent of any supplier, customer or partner currently involved in a legal dispute with PANArt.
In my opinion, handpans produced by craftsmen have been progressively emancipating themselves from the Hang for over 10 years. Indeed, while they were totally inspired by the Hang, that deliberately minimalist sound sculpture that is always intuitive and offers an inimitable sound and ‘kick’, artisanal handpans are following a path that is tending more towards musical instruments with an increasingly wide tessitura. The sound timbre of the handpan leaves less room for ‘modulations’ (a term used by PANArt to describe one of the distinctive features of their sound timbre) and focuses instead on a more crystalline sound that allows the number of notes to be increased. Each artisan maker has also developed a visual identity and puts their own signature on their work, distinguishing their creations from those of others. The Hang and handmade handpans are becoming less and less comparable, but there is nevertheless a production of handpans that could be described as more industrial or having more similarities with the Hang from PANArt, and which still raises the question of emancipation. As this subject could not be dealt with within a handpan community that was not structured for this purpose, it has unfortunately become a legal dispute between PANArt and handpan professionals (regardless of their status as craftsmen, industrialists or dealers, importers, etc.).
photo of a handpan made by myself and a Hang illustrating the question of inspiration or plagiarism.
In 2020, PANArt, a company based in Switzerland, took legal action in Germany to enforce their copyright over the Hang, which was considered to be a ‘work of applied art’. 20 years after the creation of the Hang, the demand for emancipation made by its creators to handpan manufacturers had now become much more restrictive than what had already been demanded in the past (e.g. the cases of Bellart in Spain and EchoSoundSculpture in Switzerland). This new wave of legal action could be explained by a legal opportunity provided by the European courts (see the Brompton ruling by the CJEU in 2020). PANArt's arguments are based in particular on a technical report by Dr Anthony ACHONG, to which a small group of makers wished to respond in the form of an open letter to the steel tuning community. In formulating this open letter, they attempted to have a sincere discussion about the Hang's functional and aesthetic elements, which are of great importance in defining what can be protected by copyright or what should instead be the subject of a patent application. This initiative was not followed up, perhaps due to the lack of a representative voice from the entire handpan community and a lack of willingness to discuss the matter at PANArt. The only place to hold the debate was therefore in a court of law.
To counter the risk of creating several legal precedents that would have been to the disadvantage of professional handpan makers, a self-proclaimed collective initiative pretending to represent the ‘handpan community united’ was founded in 2020 under the name of HCU. A fundraising campaign was organised to intervene legally. It was refused to apply any moral criteria to the use of the funds and their first use was to finance the defence of a handpan retailer in Germany known for its abusive commercial methods (world of handpan / handpan world). Another main use was to start a ‘pre-emptive attack’ against PANArt, with various independent cases being brought together or put on hold for what was to become the main case: the attack organised by HCU against PANArt, carried out in Bern (CH) and contesting the fact that the Hang could benefit from copyright. As each party took up positions that became conflicting, PANArt decided to respond to the fact that it was being attacked by forcing Swiss makers to join the lawsuit (by sending them letters of formal notice to cease their activities) and by seizing the workshops of Ayasa in the Netherlands (a handpan manufacturer and reseller of raw materials produced on an industrial scale).
Throughout the first phase of the trial, HCU's attack strategy was to develop arguments to ensure that the Hang could not benefit from copyright. It consisted of demonstrating that the Hang had been discovered by chance, without any creative process, and that its evolution since the first prototype was merely the result of technical choices. As a handpan maker who was inspired by the work of PANArt, I obviously wouldn't feel comfortable making such a claim! But unfortunately there was no alternative solution because no diplomatic approach had found a way to reach PANArt and many handpan players just had to agree to follow this HCU strategy or remain silent. It also became difficult during this period to propose new shapes for the instruments, as this could have undermined the legal strategy chosen by HCU (a strategy based on the premise that shape is only the consequence of functional choices, and any change in shape would be to the detriment of quality or would lead to the creation of another musical instrument).
The outcome of the first phase of the trial on 2 July 2024 appeared to be 100% positive for PANArt, validating recognition of the Hang as a work of applied art identified by its lenticular shape, its Ding and Gu in a central position and the notes placed in a circle around the Ding. HCU's strategy of presenting the Hang as the result of technical choices that do not justify any copyright protection has failed while consuming a budget that is probably high for both parties (HCU had indicated publicly that the initial budget announced by their lawyers was €250k for the whole procedure, but many observers indicate that the budget has been multiplied by 3). A reading of all the public documents published at that time reveals a lack of scientific work contradicting the scientific publications supporting PANArt, which were mentioned several times by the judge, and this may help to explain the failure of the proceedings.
On 5 September 2024, the majority of the members involved in the lawsuit decided to appeal the decision of the court in Bern to grant PANArt copyright recognition. Many in the handpan community recognise that PANArt deserves to have copyright over its creation and to continue to spend substantial sums on legal costs to delay or prevent this recognition is not an honourable fight. I have no information on the legal strategy being deployed in this appeal but once again it does not appear that any scientific research has been carried out to counter the publications by Achong and Steppat in favour of PANArt. I therefore fail to see how a positive outcome to this appeal could be achieved and it is possible that the strategy is simply to drag out the proceedings and/or make them costly. As the decision to appeal belongs to the members involved and is not made on behalf of the handpan community, I have no public opinion on the matter, but it is a procedure that delays the knowledge that all makers need to know precisely what will be considered by a judge to be plagiarism or not.
In response to this appeal, PANArt sent out a mailing ten days later to over a hundred makers and retailers in Europe to inform them that they intended to assert their rights in the event of a victory in the appeal. The fact that they did not know precisely what would be considered plagiarism or not by a judge was used as a strategic ambiguity by PANArt in its mailing. In response to PANArt's letter, HCU announced without any prior consultation that they were taking legal action against PANArt because the letter implied that all handpans were counterfeit... As well as being doomed to failure, this latest approach seems particularly procedural and devoid of substance. It is brought by Ayasa Instrument who is also a representative of HCU and therefore ambiguously implicates the handpan community as there has been no discussion of such a procedure with the public members of HCU or the wider community of makers. The abuse of legal proceedings by HCU could, in my view, be perceived as ‘doggedness’ and attract the sympathy of judges towards PANArt. To better understand this notion of doggedness, it should be remembered that another case was brought in parallel by ‘world of handpan’ with the same lawyers as HCU against the ‘Hang’ trademark. This is probably the most disrespectful action that will remain associated with our community (World of handpan was the trigger that forced the handpan community to react against PANArt in 2020, and it was also one of the very first to benefit from the money collected by HCU... all this at a time when nobody wanted to support its business, which was considered aggressive and which ostensibly used Hang-related keywords for its visibility). This case, which began in November 2023 and can easily be described as stupid, has obviously ended in a victory for PANArt, which remains the owner of the Hang trademark.
Rather than being relentlessly litigious, I felt that HCU should continue its work towards ‘phase 2’ of the legal procedure, as a definitive legal decision is a prerequisite for peaceful coexistence between PANArt and the professional handpan players (regardless of this decision, external arbitration has become necessary). As a self-proclaimed structure created in a hurry in 2020, HCU has not managed to clarify its position in the face of the conflicts of interest that have developed within its organisation and is now only representative of the members involved in the lawsuit covering Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. It is facing increasing defiance as the defence of the business of some of their members involved is prioritised over the defence of the best future for the global handpan environment. At present, by choosing to drag out the case as long as possible and by making it particularly costly, a strategy quite typically proposed by lawyers serving mainly their own interests, HCU is delaying the arrival of necessary information for all the makers and exposing them dangerously to the opening of faster legal proceedings in other countries (cf. PANArt's letter/mailing of intent of 18 September 2024 on this subject and the judgement of 4 December 2024 in France in the case opposing PANArt and Zenapan, a dropshipping reseller of very bad handpans).
‘Phase 2’ of the case supported by HCU is due to start as soon as the appeal procedure, which began in September 2024, has been completed. It aims to draw a more precise line between inspiration and plagiarism, which will determine the scope of PANArt's copyright. Given that the court had already rejected 100% of HCU's arguments concerning the 4 key points identifying the Hang, we may still have to deal with constraints that we had previously considered to be changes to functional elements (cf: in 2023, PANArt proposed abandoning the outward-pointing ding, a proposal that was valid only for the parties to the current trial, but was rejected on the grounds that the orientation of the ding is a functional and not an aesthetic characteristic). Commenting on the verdict in July 2024, the two parties came to opposite conclusions: HCU wrote that scope of this copyright will be considerably reduced at the second stage of the trial and, on the other hand, PANArt announced that it was confident that the courts would consider the handpans of Ayasa, YataoPan, World of handpan, Thomann, Terré, etc. (non-exhaustive list) to be infringements/plagiarisms. The list of entities currently involved should also be seen as containing a sub-list of probably more than a hundred different handpans, and it will be necessary to judge which ones do or do not infringe copyright. Specialist opinions are needed to imagine the possible scenarios but common sense suggests that no judge will find the motivation to analyse each instrument in detail and this could have a negative influence by putting all the handpans in ‘the same basket’... As previously indicated, it could also be interesting for PANArt to try to obtain a ‘phase 2 judgement’ in another faster trial that they could start in one or more countries other than those currently supported by the HCU entity (Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands). The latest judgement handed down in France on 4 December 2024 by the Colmar Court of Appeal clearly demonstrates that PANArt is attempting to reach other countries (France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, etc.) without any intervention from HCU.
The ideal outcome would be one that recognises the creativity of PANArt and allows handpan makers to continue/adapt their work within a clear and sustainable legal framework. I think it's worth noting here that it's not PANArt that poses the greatest threat to the artisanal handpan market. It is much more affected by the presence of players with a mass production approach and that no outcome to this lawsuit against PANArt will truly protect craftsmen (I consider a craftsman to be a company that is majority-owned by one or more tuners). Indeed, ‘saving the handpan’ in some of its current forms, which are also considered to be the easiest to industrialise, will also release the brakes currently weighing on mass production investment. This is one of the advantages of this period of uncertainty for ‘small’ craftsmen, as large-scale investment aimed at industrialising production or trading seems to have been rather limited in Europe in recent years.
In my view, the current opportunity for craftspeople is to take advantage of this period to unleash their creativity once again. They will benefit from continuing to develop the handpan and making the least industrialisable and most differentiated versions of the PANArt Hang accessible and commonplace. Instead of funding lawyers, they could fund tools for collective use and prototype new shapes that would remain free to use (before an opportunistic player appropriates the design of what will be the ‘handpan v2’ and forces other makers into positions of dependence). They could fund research and tooling to reduce the physical wear and tear associated with the maker and tuner professions, they could fund a professional union to bring them together around common interests...
... the story continues with the next update ...
2) Let's talk about shells, the starting point for any handpan making project.
When we started our project in 2010, the main problem in creating handpans was shaping the shell used as raw material by hand. We had initiated a project to create a stamping tool, but the costs of such a tool were too high to dare go it alone. A few years later, other apprentices were starting up projects all over Europe and we suggested sharing future production of stamped shells to make it possible to build the tooling. A group of 5 manufacturers agreed to take the risk of supporting the project (without knowing whether the shells would suit them) and we collectively decided on the dimensions of the future shells. I then built the stamping tool with an industrial prototyping company and chose a first batch of steel that I bought... From 2014 to 2018, we produced several batches of shells that became identifiable as "Shellopan shells". They have been used by various apprentice makers all over the world. We also welcomed many visitors who wanted to learn the basics of our work in our workshop. The demand for raw materials became greater and greater, and our intention to help the apprentice makers that we all were was turning into subcontracting work, generating economic dependency and an unbearable workload. So I decided to put an end to the sale of raw materials in the hope of promoting diversity in the instruments makers would make in the future. Since 2017, other material manufacturing projects have started to offer the sale of stamped shells, but unfortunately there has been no diversification and the shape designed in 2014 has become a standard adopted by the majority of new shells manufacturers.
Before making shells, the very first step is to find the raw material. It will have an impact on the sound almost as great as that resulting from the work of the tuner.
A common material used today is DC04 mild steel. This is a deep-drawing steel with a low carbon content and other alloying elements. The ‘DC04’ steel reference has been well known since the PANArt publications, but this reference is not a guarantee of good steel because the standard is too tolerant. It is quite easy to obtain poor DC04 steel, especially with imported goods. Also, the best parameters for stamping are not the best parameters for managing the stresses we want to induce in the sheet when we work it, so we have to find the right ‘balance’ when we choose a new batch of steel (at Shellopan, we often have to wait more than a year before we can buy the steel we want). This steel needs to be nitrided (see next point).
Over the last few years, a new trend has emerged in the handpan world: the use of stainless steel. The type of stainless steel used is called ferritic, which is nickel-free and therefore less expensive, and is mainly used to make kitchen furniture, exhaust pipes and fryer pans! The impact on the sound is very characteristic, giving the instrument more sustain with a very linear decay (the decay is more ‘cascading’ with steel, which enables faster playing). This makes the instrument even easier to play for beginners. The instrument will have a particular compressed dynamic that lends itself well to outdoor playing or slow meditative playing, but can become more tiring on the ears when played indoors, as its sound easily becomes a kind of sonic soup where everything mixes together. We believe that such instruments have a flattering side, which can be misleading for the ‘beginner’. To try to compensate for this, a grade of stainless steel alloyed with titanium/niobium (441) is now used instead of the more classic 430, but the sound remains that of stainless steel and is never comparable with that of nitrided steel.
The shaping and tuning method will have to be adapted to the material used. Independently of the tuner's work, the instrument's sound will be greatly affected by the choice of basic material. We therefore believe that it is important for a handpan maker to know the physical and chemical characteristics of the sheet metal he buys.
Different shell forming methods:
(in order of increasing personal preference, advantages and disadvantages in brackets):
- manual hammering with a pneumatic rammer (+ inexpensive / + possible control of thickness with experience / - health risk, hard on muscles and joints)
- manual or computer-controlled spinning (+ inexpensive / + easy to form the vent of the hull below / - problem of inconsistent thickness, the sheet becomes thinner the further from the centre you go)
- hydroforming (+ easy to choose the depth of the hull, - impossible to control the thickness distribution, the final hull is sometimes about 20% thinner in the centre, we have eliminated this technique for this reason)
- spinning with clamped rims (+ thickness control possible depending on tooling / - need for thicker sheet metal to start with, as spinning will only refine the material / - marked grooves in the surface)
- stamping on a hydraulic press, this is the method used by Shellopan, whose first version of the tooling can be seen here (+ sheet thickness control with the possibility of allowing material to enter from the blank holder, - expensive tooling and need for a large press)
One very important characteristic concerns the thickness distribution after the shell has been formed (see photo below of the thickness distribution for a Shellopan deep-drawn shell, measured using an ultrasonic probe).
3) about nitriding steel
The choice of a low-carbon stamping steel (e.g. DC01 to DC05) calls for a treatment designed to modify its mechanical properties (hardness, elastic resistance, work-hardening behavior, etc.). Because of this need for treatment, working with steel is more complicated and expensive than working with stainless (no external treatment needed, no rust risk during manipulation, no need to remove oil before treatment...).
The most widely used principle is nitriding, the principles of which applied to a metal musical instrument were detailed in 2000 by PANArt Hangbau AG (Conference on New Developments of the Steelpan - Paris - 05/20/2000).
We can distinguish 3 approaches to nitriding:
- very short nitriding, creating 3 layers in the material: a combination layer (white layer), a diffusion layer and then the central layer of variable thickness, with little or no change in the material's characteristics. Protection against oxidation is acceptable, but it is possible to attempt to improve it by a post oxidation procedure. In my experience, instruments made with this type of material generally have a longer sustain.
- medium nitriding creates 2 layers in the material, as presented in PANArt publications in 2000: the result is a combination layer followed by a diffusion layer to the core of the material. Surface hardness is around 2x greater than core hardness. This is the type of nitriding we use.
- long nitriding, as proposed in the old PANArt patent, to obtain a certain density of precipitated nitrides. This is a nitriding process that no Handpan manufacturer seems to use. PANArt has been using it since the so-called “integral” Hang. I've never been able to test such a material, so I can't comment on its characteristics.
4) Materials physics and the importance of a scientific approach
It is possible to make musical instruments by simply tuning commercially available shells, but it seems to me that starting a real craft project linked to the physical characteristics of metal should be accompanied by a study of these characteristics. I don't pretend to give a course on this subject, but in order not to be limited to talking about hard or soft metal, I can nevertheless invite readers to find out about the following notions:
- breaking strength
- elongation before break
- elasticity and Young's modulus
- strain hardening
- anisotropy
- fatigue strength
- notion of compressive stress
- notion of annealing
- necking phenomenom
- aging phenomenom
- nitriding principles
Overall, being able to explain the differences between rigidity, strength, stiffness and hardness is a sign of good understanding :)
The challenges in our field of activity would be to understand the impact of all these parameters :
- on the timbre of a note and of an instrument as a whole
- on its style of note preparation and tuning.
Interesting information can be found in the research work of PANArt and Anthony Achong. Daniel Bernasconi of SOMA Sound Scluptures in Switzerland has chosen to publish a synthesis of his research here: “science of sounding steel”.
5) Workshop and tools
Having a place to work is the very first requirement for making handpans, and I've seen workshops ranging from 5m² to 2000m²...
Ours is a 25m² double garage:
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While some expensive tools can be pooled, others become very personal, such as hammers. Everyone will of course have their own preferences, but here's a generic list of the tools needed to start a handpan-making project
- shell cleaning: scotch brite 180 to 1000 grit on an angle grinder, solvent/degreaser such as “petrol F” or isopropyl alcohol in a ventilated area and with an A2P3 standard combined protective mask (important).
- nitriding: a rack supporting the shells and spacing the shells in the oven helps prevent deformation
- stamping of dimples or notes + dimples: steel and/or rubber male stamps and steel female stamps + press <20 tons. Here's a tool to help you calculate note and dimple sizes: shellopan - note and dimples ratio.xlsx (right-click, save target if you have trouble displaying the file, and read the questions and answers at the bottom of the file). Note that pressing notes at the same time as dimples does not dispense with extensive interstitial work (shaping), and may even make it more complicated.
- making the opening of the bottom shell: male and female impressions + press <5 tons + rotating holding plate + 1kg bodywork hammer
- forming the shell between the notes: strapping to hold the shell rim in place + pneumatic rammer (keyword: GS-0838E) + with different heads + air compressor. Beware: the use of a pneumatic rammer is particularly hard on the body due to exposure to vibrations, with some measurements indicating a maximum exposure time of 8 minutes per day. A vibration reduction system is therefore essential (see below, point number 7).
- annealing: a suitably sized furnace capable of withstanding temperatures of up to 600°C (usually a minimum of 6kW)
- hammering: set of hammers and mallets (panmaker.eu)
- tuning: hammers, tuning stand (diy plans available here, right-click to download DWG file), audio analysis tool (examples: linotune, overtone analyser, peterson mechanical strobe tuners)
- gluing: a glue gun suitable for thick mastics is highly recommended, although some people use an electric gun to make this step easier (forget low-end products in this respect, they won't have sufficient force).
6) Protecting yourself: personal equipment
Maker activity exposes the body to risks of wear and tear, illness and accidents. Here are some of the best protective gear we've found to date:
- hearing protection: 3M PELTOR X5
- anti-vibration gloves: EJENDALS - Tegera 9180 (size a little small, go one size up)
- respiratory protection for grinding or use of solvents: 3M VERSAFLOW TR-600 + M-206 helmet
- chemical protection gloves: ATG MaxyDry
- wrist protection: MID300 (very simple but efficient)
7) Reducing vibrations of the air hammer
For most of handpan makers, the activity involves the use of pneumatic hammers which cause a quantity of vibrations absorbed by the body well in excess of the dose that would be tolerable for a salaried employee. To give you an idea of the orders of magnitude, if I had to recruit someone in France to do this pneumatic hammering work, the level of vibration to which they would be exposed would prevent me from asking them to do more than 8 minutes of this work a day. Exposure to vibrations is responsible for disabling occupational diseases affecting muscles, joints and the nervous system (I leave it to everyone to do their own research on this subject).
To protect my own health, I designed an anti-vibration system that can be adapted to any shaping station. I'm now offering this solution as a group purchase to optimise its cost and make it accessible to other makers. The current solution is dedicated to the ‘GS-0838E’ 1500 stroke/minute hammer and all plastic or Delrin heads, and can work on nitrided steel and stainless steel at up to 5 bar pressure (ideal at 3.5-4 bar and of course less presure).
This solution is based on an articulated arm that can be anchored to the floor, the shaping station or the ceiling (best anchoring position is 45cm above the height of the rim of the shell that need to be shaped, minimum anchoring surface : 12cm round diameter, 4x M10 screws). It allows the hammer's pivot point / locus point to be chosen quickly, while providing resistance to the counter-force from hammering impacts. Added to this is a mechanism that smoothes the hammer's movement in all directions, providing precise guidance while absorbing a large amount of vibration. The operator can hold the hammer without tensing his hand on it, further reducing the level of vibration transmitted to the body.
If you're interested, I'll be happy to welcome you to my workshop for tests by appointment, and you can take away your own anti-vibration kit (bring your own hammers or at least your own heads with M10 threads and your own raw material ready to shape). The kit is made in Europe and costs €2900 excluding VAT (the arm, the rotating attachment, dedicated air hammer connectors, foot pedal with euro air connectors). Contact me by email for more information (matthieu (at) shellopan.fr). Air hammer, hammer heads, air pipe, air compressor are not included.
8) Video resources
Here's a two-part video I made during the “great confinement” to serve as a teaching resource for the science curriculum of certain high school classes in France. There's some general theory on sound, and I end with a demonstration of how to tune a handpan note.
Finally, here is a video showing a range of tuning possibilities for the highest vibration modes of the middle note (shoulder tones), choose english subtitles on youtube :
