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I wonder if anyone's bothered to assay their alloy to reverse engineer it.


It's B20 bronze (80% copper, 20% tin).

Robert Zildjian explained it's not the formula that's the secret, but the process for manufacturing cymbals without cracking since B20 is so brittle.


I'd be shocked if they hadn't. Particularly, cymbal makers who have already mapped out the other parts of the process. In fact they may already be using the same or similar alloys. Consider that violins are all made from approximately the same materials.

It's a day's work in the right spectroscopy lab. A bit more difficult to figure out is how to turn the cast blank into a cymbal.

And, finding a place in a mature market.


The "How it's Made" for cymbals is a Zildjian factory. By the time this was made, there were already many competitors, so I doubt anything in the video wasn't already replicated by Sabian, Paiste, etc., but it's still interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYGRcbKOt4U


Italians also got into cymbal-making during the 20th century, the upshot of which was apparently that some of the post-WWII British cymbals branded as "Zyn" were made by Italian POWs (or maybe ex-POWs?)


Interestingly, Sabian is the same family as Zildjian. I believe the owners at the time of separation were brothers Robert (who separated out the Sabian line in Canada naming it after his children) and Armand who took the Zildjian line in Massachusetts.


There is a rich tradition of secret sauce Armenian-American businesses splitting in half in this way. Zankou Chicken forked, for instance, however much more acrimoniously.




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