There are inherent variations in the visual appearance of gongs. This is an important topic that needs to be understood and clarified.

On its journey from round, blank sheets of nickel silver to the fine-tuned, finished instrument, the gong encounters immense forces and effects. There is annealing with a blazing flame at temperatures of up to 800° Celsius (1500' Fahrenheit). There are massive hammer blows that would shatter most everyday objects. Many of the gongs are large, heavy objects that have to be handled numerous times throughout the manufacturing process. The making of gongs is, in part, a difficult, archaic and ferocious process which is performed painstakingly and laboriously by human beings.

In that kind of environment, a perfect, pristine and uniform appearance is practically impossible to achieve. At Paiste, the foremost goal in the creation of a gong is its sound. Each model has a well-defined, specific character and function. When that goal is achieved, we must and do accept small imperfections and visual variations as part of the process to achieve the magnificent beauty of the gong sound. Visually, gongs are not clones; each one has its own unique identity that tells the story of its creation.

These are the most common examples of what can be expected in terms of visual variations:

Annealing process - The areas of the gong which are heated result in an oxidization layer -- visually, this layer causes the coloration. The round blank sheets are meticulously cleaned before the heating is performed to achieve the best possible result. However, there may be process related residues from the rolling procedure in the invisible nano to micro range, or a stray dust spec may decide to float onto the disk surface while the heating is performed. These factors can result in visible patterns or spots during heating that vary from the overall coloration. Moreover, the varying climates due to the seasons, in particular the prevailing degree of dryness or humidity, will affect the coloration notably; thus a coloration range from pale to dark brown to almost black is to be expected as a natural result of the environment.

Hammering process - The heaviest forces and hammer blows are applied during the hammering of the rim. It is quite normal that the rim surface area may display the occasional scratch or flake off in the oxidization layer.

Hammering patterns - The various phases of creating a gong, such as the hammering patterns for the rim, the shaping and tuning of the surface, and fine-tuning are well defined and followed carefully. Yet, just as in handwriting, each gong smith has his own signature and style. Especially in the tuning and fine tuning process, more or less hammer blows will be required to achieve the goals for sound, character and function.

Handling - Although great care is taken to avoid this, the occasional small scratch may result from the handling of gongs, especially with very large diameter gongs.

In short, we start with valuable round, blank sheets, we have environmental factors that affect the process, and we invest many hours of hard manual work into each gong. In the end, the sound is the deciding factor. If the sound is 'right', then the gong is 'right'.