Canyon Winds was given a sizable donation last year and fortunately the Percussion Section received a large percentage of it. Doug (our director) wants to have the band own their own percussion equipment rather than rely on each of the percussionists to bring in personal equipment. We had been using a windchime (really a Mark chime tree) belonging to one of the players so this was one item on our want list.
We chose a TreeWorks brand of windchime that cost us $150. Usually the mount for a windchime is an afterthought and it is mounted on an unused cymbal stand by removing the wing nut and sleeve, placing the windchime on the threaded part and then tightening the wing nut back on. This ends up having the windchime to pivot up and down when it's played making it difficult to play and dampen, plus visually it looks haphazard and sloppy.
Not only does this offend my sensibilities, but it goes against my philosophy: "Why buy a commercially made product for $25 when you can make one for $50?"
Actually I had all the parts left over from other projects. I used some 1" steel bar that I bent to shape, 8mm wing nut and bolt, hard felt, plastic tubing, and clamping system from an old cowbell mount. Some drilling and cutting produced a dedicated windchime mount that could be easily clamped to various diameter stands, solidly holding the windchimes in the proper position and most importantly getting rid of the need to replace missing wing nuts and cymbal felts that would be lost.
We chose a TreeWorks brand of windchime that cost us $150. Usually the mount for a windchime is an afterthought and it is mounted on an unused cymbal stand by removing the wing nut and sleeve, placing the windchime on the threaded part and then tightening the wing nut back on. This ends up having the windchime to pivot up and down when it's played making it difficult to play and dampen, plus visually it looks haphazard and sloppy.
Not only does this offend my sensibilities, but it goes against my philosophy: "Why buy a commercially made product for $25 when you can make one for $50?"
Actually I had all the parts left over from other projects. I used some 1" steel bar that I bent to shape, 8mm wing nut and bolt, hard felt, plastic tubing, and clamping system from an old cowbell mount. Some drilling and cutting produced a dedicated windchime mount that could be easily clamped to various diameter stands, solidly holding the windchimes in the proper position and most importantly getting rid of the need to replace missing wing nuts and cymbal felts that would be lost.
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| Mount |
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| The Mount in use |
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