Wind Chimes

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2006-01-22 Rev. 2006-03-14, -06-26, 2008-03-18, -03-19 split 2009-01-04

Wind chimes are arrangements of metal, glass, wood, shell, pottery etc., that produce sound when the wind blows past them.  They can range in size from a few inches to several feet and retail from a few dollars to a several hundred dollars.  A wind chime must be built with fairly tight clearances if it is to make sound in gentle breezes.  Glass and pottery wind chimes must normally be hung where they will be protected from strong winds which will break the glass and pottery elements. The sound of a chime depends on the material, the thickness of the material, the length of the tubes or items, and the material of the striker.  Note that it is possible to make a wind chime without a striker, but it typically doesn't work very well because all the elements swing together instead of striking. An exception is when multiple flat or slightly curved pieces are placed close together so they spin or oscillate enough to strike those near by.   2006-03-14

Any attempt to make wind chimes should involve testing the sound made by the materials for quality and quantity.  A first test can be using a paper clip or pliers to hold the piece while it is rapped with material like the planned clapper(s). A further test taking a bit of time is to use clear household glue to attach a piece of thread (letting it dry) so it will hang freely and the sound be more clearly heard.  When I made miniature, three element wind chimes from colored glass, I fused a hook into each one and hung them from thread loops to test their sound together - if acceptable, the final threads were knotted and glued.

Metal tube wind chimes can be built of a number of materials using the rules given in the table below.  Some materials and even some alloys of materials are dull and will not produce a reasonable sound.  Any tube of the same length, supported at the same point, will produce the same note, but as a trumpet and clarinet can produce the same note with a considerably different tone, the tone will vary depending on material and striking method.  Brass and aluminum are the most commonly used, steel making a very heavy chime.  Metal tubes make a considerably different initial sound when struck by a metal clapper compared to a wood clapper and different woods - harder and softer - with different shapes - square or round edged - will also produce different sounds.

Recently, .here in Texas, I have had trouble with the tubes being stuffed with grass by some insect and that or another laying eggs that hatch into tiny grasshoppers.  The first sign I had was wisps of grass hanging out the bottom, but of course, it also dulls the sound, acting as padding on the inside.  A stiff wire, like coat hanger wire, can push the trash out so a clear view through the tube can be seen. 2006-06-26

My mother-in-law was given a set of large wind chimes by her other daughter.  These are aluminum tubing and costly (a couple of hundred dollars) as I know from working at Elliott's.  They also have a lovely deep tone that rings for some time.  I was planning on making a set for us, although the cost of 2" aluminum tubing was discouraging. The original is 2" aluminum tubing with 1/8" wall, silver inside and anodized blue outside.  A metal shell acts as spreader for the support lines.  An 1/8"x7" aluminum disk is the sail at the bottom and a 3/4"x6.5" hard disk with rounded edge is the clapper.  The pipes are hung so the clapper is striking 44% down their length and suspension is from a rod through the wall at 22% of length with the cord tied in the middle.
After doing a bunch of measurements (below) and trying some stuff with steel pipe and conduit scraps, I decided to buy a 10 foot length of 1-1/2 (nominal) EMT conduit about 2" in OD and build what I could from that length. If worked out, I would go further.  Various experiments had convinced me that the relative weights of the clapper and the sail were important, so I worked to compute those. Basically, I have been making my clappers bigger and heavier so swinging goes on longer and making them flat instead of bending them for direction.
I cut the pieces of EMT on my cheap metal band saw and after filing or grinding to smooth the burred end, I drilled 5/32 for 9 gauge steel wire for the hanger rods.  The rods were gently curved and cut about 1/8-1/4" longer than the OD.  Two tricks helped install the rods 1) Looking down the tube from the end, the light from the hole reflecting off the end of the wire helped get it in the hole, & 2) Holding the wire end with finger tips, the hanging cord with a steel nut on one end was slid down inside the tube until past the rod, then the tube was rolled over and inverted so the nut fell back taking the cord around the rod.  Holding both ends of the cord pulled tight to curve the rod upward in the tube, a hammer was used with the end of the rod on a vice to peen the ends, bowing the rod somewhat more and widening the ends.  When done, the nut was taken off the cord, a stopper knot tied in the end, and a slip knot added to tighten on the rod by pulling.
For the preliminary test, an existing steel ring 1/2"x1/2"x6"OD was used and a hardwood disk was cut to fit between the pipes with a small gap. A clear glass sheet was drilled (after several failures splitting the glass) and roughly shaped.  The sound was nice.
For the final installation a drawing was made to scale using measurements off the image (screen calipers) for pipe spacing and disk size.  A steel ring of flat 3/4"x1/8" was cut to be 9.5" OD and welded and rounded.  The pipes were mounted at the 1/6 points while suspension was at the 1/3rd points.  Using a ring allowed retying the knots to raise or lower the pipes.  A larger hardwood disk was cut in two halves from a narrow scrap board and edge glued and sanded including rounding the edge somewhat.  A small hole in the center admitted a stiff stainless steel wire for hanging.  Loops at top and bottom of the wire were bent for string and a loop twisted near the middle positioned the disk on the wire. A white glass disk 6.5" across was cut from on hand glass and drilled for hanging.  A wire was looped through the drilled hole to avoid glass chafing the string. Sounds good. 2008-03-18
During development of various wind chimes, using brass tubes and steel washers on clappers, steel pipe lengths were cut from pieces left at curb for trash.  First as double then as triple, these were hung, as shown above right, to work on different tones of steel same length.  I believe the sail and clapper both need to be heavier than shown. 2008-03-19

This is a montage of a wind chime at my mother-in-laws which represents an idea and a mistake.  You can get a bigger photobucket image in new window by clicking this one.  The black disk below the top ball holds 4 solar cells and batteries which are charged by the sun during the day. When it gets dark, LEDs on a wire through the globes light up as shown. The glass is crackle glass and the wires and hang chain pass through the blow hole in the top and a drilled hole in the bottom.  There is a glass pendant flapper at the bottom, but it does little action, the noise coming from the pipes hitting each other and the globes.  A flaw in my opinion is that while the tubes are mounted on string passing through little plastic grommets (nice) they are all drilled exactly the same distance several inches down down from the top, thus muting and distorting the sound by neither being very near the end nor at the node point.  I think it clatters rather than chimes. 2009-01-04

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