Trailblazers - Mike Skiba
In the early days of my cymbalsmithing experiments, I was posting my work on ‘myspace’(yep, it was that long ago) and Matt Nolan saw my work and helped me become a member of ‘cymbalholic.com’. The information I discovered on that site was exceptional and helped fuel my ever deepening exploration of cymbalsmithing. Chad and Patrice Anderson were the creators of the website and spent a great deal of time and energy keeping the website up and running. It was a bustling (and sometimes tension ridden) community of cymbal geeks from across the planet and the perfect place for someone like me to spend a great deal of time. Mike Skiba was the sites cymbalsmithng expert and published some articles on shaping and hammering and building a lathe. He posted regularly and answered many questions from members. Mike was the most accessible and knowledgeable cymbalsmith that I could interact with at the time and his information was articulate and brimming with knowledge.
Mike was the third of four sons of a talented craftsmen from Brick, New Jersey. As a boy, he was often helping his father with all manner of fabrication tasks and had access to a very functional and versatile machine shop. In the mid seventies Mike (being the drummer in the family) enlisted his father’s help to reverse-engineer cymbals and so began his passionate journey in to the craft. Mike was a warehouse manager who spent his free time drumming and cymalsmithng, alongside his other passions of family, animals and nature. His motto, instilled in him from his father was, “craftsmanship is priceless”. Mike was an incredible craftsman.
Blanks were very difficult to come by in the nineties and so Mike would often use sabian raw rides as a base for his work; primarily because they had the least manufacturing done to them. They were un-hammered (but pressed into shape) and un-lathed. There are quite a number of cymbals still in existence that Mike either re-worked or hammered from Turkish blanks (which he had stable access to for the last 5 years of his life). I have some of Mike’s work in my ‘cymbal library’ and play those cymbals often, along with my Spizz’s, Johan’s, Michael Paiste’s, Steve Hubback’s and old k’s. They give me a centre and perspective on my own work. When I play Mike’s work, I sometimes hear his words or imagine his theories.
Mike was the first person to articulate the idea of strata layers in cymbals; crust (like a turk surface) being the hardest because of the way that heat and work hardening and impurities impacts it; case, after lathing away the crust layer, there’s a musical strata layer that is softer than the crust but harder than the inner core layer; core, the softest layer that will not hold tension and work hardening to the degree of the other layers and is therefore potentially problematic for a musical and dynamic cymbal. Mike believed that the layers change over chronological time and with the amount and nature of vibration (use). In Mike’s words, “new cymbals have less relative thickness to their harder outer case...the metal structure seems to be more uniform in density with new cymbals. The demarcation between layers is less apparent, with a sort of gradient condition in place as a subtle indicator.
It seems to me that this condition changes with vibration over time, and mallet rolls seem to be a device that might help enhance the separation of layers. Keep in mind that there are other physical characteristics at work here, too...the overall thickness of the piece has a lot to do with the potential separation and/or integration of neighboring layers.”
Mike talked about the sizzle effect, which is an almost rivet like quality that can occur; in my experience particularly in cymbals with hand formed bells. In Mike’s own words from a post on cymbalholic, “The airy upper sibilance (“sizzle effect”) is created by drawing increasing tension from the mid-bow up to the bridge area. This is done in the shaping stage, and therefore it can be intentionally included in the crafting of a cymbal by design. Cymbals that are shaped by machine-pressing may or may not get the benefit...it’s the luck of the draw when using hydraulic-driven dies.
Hand hammering in the shaping stage allows the opportunity to install this effect if so desired. The inclusion of this characteristic calls upon the craftsman to carefully hammer the upper bow and bridge zones to form a partnership of increasing tension that is greater at the bridge. These cymbals typically exhibit a higher pitch response as they are played up the bow toward the bell, which is also slightly higher in pitch. This effect may be present in raw, unlathed cymbals, but to a lesser degree because the full potential of its benefits are not released across the surface of the cymbal. Remember that the surface is also where tension is stored, so it follows that SOME of the built-in tension gradient will be audibly apparent even in a raw cymbal.”
So much of Mike’s wisdom has become cymbalsmithing vernacular. ‘Speed and feed’ is a phrase that rings in my head every time I lathe a cymbal. My fist exposure to ideas of tension, density, vibrational energy, vibrational pathways, hammering and lathing strategies, sonic characteristics etc. were from reading Mike’s articles and posts on cymbalholic.
Here is a link to an archived version of, ‘The Art Of Cymbal Making’ by Mike Skiba –https://archive.org/details/the-art-of-cymbal-making-mike-skiba/page/n9/mode/2up
It’s 10 pages of extremely well written and informative material that every person passionate about cymbals should read.
Mike’s role as an incredible artisan and one who could eloquently share information about the craft, was critical in fostering the new generation of cymbalsmiths that immediately followed. His legacy lives on in his work and writing.