A page for handpan enthusiasts !
updated 09/09/2025, updates about point #1 and 2, shell history, legal disputes,...
Our Shellopan cooperative has been built up since 2010 thanks to a lot of sharing. Continuing in this spirit of sharing with all those who have helped us to progress, we have chosen to publish the information that we feel is most useful to anyone interested in handpan making.
- Is the handpan a copy of the PANArt Hang or has it become emancipated from its initial inspiration? Current status of legal disputes and prospects... (updated 09/09/2025)
- The history of the shells, the starting point for any handpan making project (updated 09/09/2025)
- About nitriding steel
- The physics of materials and the importance of a scientific approach
- The workshop and tools
- Protection: individual equipment
- Reducing vibrations during pneumatic hammering (updated 24/10/2024)
- Video resources
1) Is the handpan a copy of the PANArt Hang or has it become emancipated from its initial inspiration? Current status of legal disputes and prospects... (updated on 09/09/2025)
Faced with the many stories and legends surrounding the conflict between PANArt and the handpan community, it seems important to me (Matthieu Shellopan) to write so as not to let too many legends take the place of history... In order to contextualise the elements of analysis that I might have to formulate, I am writing as a professional in the handpan environment. My activity as a handpan maker is based in France and was totally inspired by my encounters at PANArt, which began nearly 20 years ago. I was also the first manufacturer/reseller of raw material (shellopan shells) in Europe between 2014 and 2018. Finally, I am totally independent of any supplier, customer or partner currently involved in a legal dispute with PANArt.
In my opinion, handpans produced by craftsmen have been progressively emancipating themselves from the Hang for over 10 years. Indeed, while they were totally inspired by the Hang, that deliberately minimalist sound sculpture that is always intuitive and offers an inimitable sound and ‘kick’, artisanal handpans are following a path that is tending more towards musical instruments with an increasingly wide tessitura. The sound timbre of the handpan is less focussed on ‘modulations’ (a term used by PANArt to describe one of the distinctive features of their sound timbre) and focuses instead on a more crystalline sound and allows the number of notes to be increased. Each artisan maker has also developed a visual identity and puts their own signature on their work, distinguishing their creations from those of others. The Hang and handmade handpans are becoming less and less comparable, but there is nevertheless a production of handpans that could be described as more industrial or having more similarities with the Hang from PANArt, and which still raises the question of emancipation. As this subject could not be dealt with within a handpan community that was not structured for this purpose, it has unfortunately become a legal dispute between PANArt and handpan professionals (regardless of their status as craftsmen, industrialists or dealers, importers, etc.).
photo of a handpan made by myself and a Hang illustrating the question of inspiration or plagiarism.
In 2020, PANArt, a company based in Switzerland, took legal action in Germany to enforce their copyright over the Hang, which was considered to be a ‘work of applied art’. 20 years after the creation of the Hang, the demand for emancipation made by its creators to handpan manufacturers had now become much more restrictive than what had already been demanded in the past (e.g. the cases of Bellart in Spain and EchoSoundSculpture in Switzerland). This new wave of legal action could be explained by a legal opportunity provided by the European courts (see the Brompton ruling by the CJEU in 2020). PANArt's arguments are based in particular on a technical report by Dr Anthony ACHONG, to which a small group of makers wished to respond in the form of an open letter to the steel tuning community. In formulating this open letter, they attempted to have a sincere discussion about the Hang's functional and aesthetic elements, which are of great importance in defining what can be protected by copyright or what should instead be the subject of a patent application. This initiative was not followed up, perhaps due to the lack of a representative voice from the entire handpan community and a lack of willingness to discuss the matter at PANArt. The only place to hold the debate was therefore in a court of law.
To counter the risk of creating several legal precedents that would have been to the disadvantage of professional handpan makers, a self-proclaimed collective initiative pretending to represent the ‘handpan community united’ was founded in 2020 under the name of HCU. A fundraising campaign was organised to intervene legally. It was refused to apply any moral criteria to the use of the funds and their first action was to finance the defence of a handpan retailer in Germany known for its controversial commercial methods (world of handpan / handpan world). Another action was to start a ‘pre-emptive attack’ against PANArt, with various independent cases being brought together or put on hold for what was to become the main case: the "defensive attack" organised by HCU against PANArt, carried out in Bern (CH) and contesting the fact that the Hang could benefit from copyright. As each party took up positions that became conflicting, PANArt decided to respond to the fact that it was being attacked by forcing Swiss makers to join the lawsuit (by sending them letters of formal notice to cease their activities) and by seizing the workshops of Ayasa in the Netherlands (a handpan maker and reseller of shells used by another makers).
Throughout the first phase of the trial, HCU's strategy was to develop arguments to ensure that the Hang could not benefit from copyright. It consisted of demonstrating that the Hang had been discovered by chance, without any creative process, and that its evolution since the first prototype was merely the result of technical choices. As a handpan maker who was inspired by the work of PANArt, I obviously wouldn't feel comfortable making such a claim! But unfortunately there was no alternative solution because no diplomatic approach had found a way to reach PANArt and many handpan players just had to agree to follow this HCU strategy or remain silent. It also became difficult during this period to propose new shapes for the instruments, as this could have undermined the legal strategy chosen by HCU (a strategy based on the premise that shape is only the consequence of functional choices, and any change in shape would be to the detriment of quality or would lead to the creation of another musical instrument).
The outcome of the first phase of the trial on 2 July 2024 appeared to be 100% positive for PANArt, validating recognition of the Hang as a work of applied art identified by its lenticular shape, its Ding and Gu in a central position and the notes placed in a circle around the Ding. HCU's strategy of presenting the Hang as the result of technical choices that do not justify any copyright protection has failed while consuming a budget that is probably high for both parties (HCU had indicated publicly that the initial budget announced by their lawyers was €250k for the whole procedure, but many observers indicate that the budget has been multiplied by 4). A reading of all the public documents published at that time reveals a lack of scientific work contradicting the scientific publications supporting PANArt, which were mentioned several times by the judge, and this may help to explain the failure of the proceedings.
On 5 September 2024, the majority of the members involved in the lawsuit decided to appeal the decision of the court in Bern to grant PANArt copyright recognition. Many in the handpan community recognise that PANArt deserves to have copyright over its creation and to continue to spend substantial sums on legal costs to delay or prevent this recognition is not an honourable fight. I have no information on the legal strategy being deployed in this appeal but once again it does not appear that any scientific research has been carried out to counter the publications by Achong and Steppat in favour of PANArt. It is possible that the strategy is simply to drag out the proceedings and/or make them costly. It is a procedure that delays the knowledge that all makers need to know precisely what will be considered by a judge to be plagiarism or not.
In response to this appeal, PANArt sent out a mailing ten days later to over many makers and retailers in Europe to inform them that they intended to assert their rights in the event of a victory in the appeal. The fact that they did not know precisely what would be considered plagiarism or not by a judge was used as a strategic ambiguity by PANArt in its mailing. In response to PANArt's letter, HCU announced without any prior consultation that they were taking legal action against PANArt because the letter implied that all handpans were counterfeit... As well as being doomed to failure, this latest approach seems particularly procedural and devoid of substance. It is brought by Ayasa Instrument who is also a representative of HCU and therefore ambiguously implicates the handpan community as there has been no discussion of such a procedure with the public members of HCU or the wider community of makers. The abuse of legal proceedings by HCU could, in my view, be perceived as ‘doggedness’ and attract the sympathy of judges towards PANArt. To better understand this notion of doggedness, it should be remembered that another case was brought in parallel by ‘world of handpan’ with the same lawyers as HCU against the ‘Hang’ trademark. This is probably the most disrespectful action that will remain associated with our community (World of handpan was the trigger that forced the handpan community to react against PANArt in 2020, and it was also one of the very first to benefit from the money collected by HCU... all this at a time when nobody wanted to support its business, which was considered aggressive and which ostensibly used Hang-related keywords for its visibility). This case, which began in November 2023 and can easily be described as stupid, has obviously ended in a victory for PANArt, which remains the owner of the Hang trademark.
In March 2025, we learned that the appeal had been rejected by the Swiss Federal Court, which apparently did not want to re-examine the existence of copyright until the Bern court had completed its judgement by determining the exact scope of this copyright (phase 2 of the trial).
Rather than pursuing a pointless appeal, I felt that HCU's work towards ‘phase 2’ of the legal proceedings should have been prioritised, as a final court ruling is a prerequisite for peaceful coexistence between PANArt and professional handpan actors (whatever the outcome, external arbitration has become necessary). As a self-proclaimed structure created in a hurry in 2020, HCU has not managed to clarify its position in the face of the conflicts of interest that have developed within its organisation and is now only representative of the members involved in the lawsuit covering Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. At present, by choosing to drag out the case as long as possible and by making it particularly costly, a strategy quite typically proposed by lawyers serving mainly their own interests, HCU has been delaying the arrival of necessary information for all the makers and exposing them dangerously to the opening of legal proceedings in other countries (cf. PANArt's letter/mailing of intent of 18 September 2024 on this subject and the judgement of 4 December 2024 in France in the case opposing PANArt and Zenapan, a dropshipping reseller of very bad handpans).
"Phase 2" of the trial will commence at the end of September 2025 with the submission of briefs by both parties and with a hearing scheduled for early 2026. It aims to draw a more precise line between inspiration and plagiarism, which will determine the scope of PANArt's copyright. Given that the court had already rejected the majority of HCU's arguments concerning the 4 key points identifying the Hang, we may still have to deal with constraints that we had previously considered to be changes to functional elements (cf: in 2023, PANArt proposed abandoning the outward-pointing ding, a proposal that was valid only for the parties to the current trial, but was rejected on the grounds that the orientation of the ding is a functional and not an aesthetic characteristic). Commenting on the verdict in July 2024, the two parties came to opposite conclusions: HCU wrote that scope of this copyright will be considerably reduced at the second stage of the trial and, on the other hand, PANArt announced that it was confident that the courts would consider the handpans of Ayasa, YataoPan, World of handpan, Thomann, Terré, etc. (non-exhaustive list) to be infringements/plagiarisms. The list of entities currently involved should also be seen as containing a sub-list of probably more than a hundred different handpans, and it will be necessary to judge which ones do or do not infringe copyright. Specialist opinions are needed to imagine the possible scenarios but common sense suggests that no judge will find the motivation to analyse each instrument in detail and this could have a negative influence by putting all the handpans in ‘the same basket’... As previously indicated, it could also be interesting for PANArt to try to obtain a ‘phase 2 judgement’ in another faster trial that they could start in one or more countries other than those currently supported by the HCU entity (Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands). The latest judgement handed down in France on 4 December 2024 by the Colmar Court of Appeal clearly demonstrates that PANArt is attempting to reach other countries (France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, etc.).
The ideal outcome would be one that recognises the creativity of PANArt and allows handpan makers to continue/adapt their work within a clear and sustainable legal framework. I think it's worth noting here that it's not PANArt that poses the greatest threat to the artisanal handpan market. It is much more affected by the presence of players with a mass production approach and that no outcome to this lawsuit against PANArt will truly protect craftsmen (I consider a craftsman to be a company that is majority-owned by one or more tuners). Indeed, ‘saving the handpan’ in some of its current forms, which are also considered to be the easiest to industrialise, will also release the brakes currently weighing on mass production investment. This is one of the advantages of this period of uncertainty for ‘small’ craftsmen, as large-scale investment aimed at industrialising production or trading seems to have been rather limited in Europe in recent years.
In my view, the current opportunity for craftspeople is to take advantage of this period to unleash their creativity once again. They will benefit from continuing to develop the handpan and making the least industrialisable and most differentiated versions of the PANArt Hang accessible and commonplace. Instead of funding lawyers, they could fund tools for collective use and prototype new shapes that would remain free to use (before an opportunistic player appropriates the design of what will be the ‘handpan v2’ and forces other makers into positions of dependence). They could fund research and tooling to reduce the physical wear and tear associated with the maker and tuner professions, they could fund a professional union to bring them together around common interests...
... the story continues with the next update ...
2) The history of shells, the starting point for any handpan manufacturing project!
Here is the little-known story of the shells used to make handpans. It is the evolution of these shells that has greatly contributed to the proliferation of handpan manufacturing projects around the world and, perhaps at times, to an over-standardisation of the handpan. I (Matthieu Shellopan) feel justified in telling this story because I oversaw the manufacture of the first stamped shells, which were shared among several handpan makers.
Some handpan makers have created their own shells, sometimes using very creative technologies, but for now I have chosen to limit this article to projects that have had a collective dimension. It will be updated later to highlight some other projects. Please feel free to write to me about this.Before the year 2000, no one had heard of Hang or handpan! Only the Steelpan existed, and historically it was and still is mainly made from the bottoms of steel drums. The technique of pre-stamping the bottom by hand while specifically distributing the thickness of the material is physically demanding, but it has been refined in Trinidad over the years since the steelpan first appeared in the 1940s.
In 2000, PANArt presented its paper ‘The technology of a new rawform’ at the ‘New Developments of the Steelpan’ conference in Paris. The technique of stamping steelpan shells was presented and documented there, and the same technique was adapted to make the shells for the Hang. I did not attend this conference and only encountered the Hang in 2005, before becoming fascinated by its manufacturing technique after my first visit to PANArt in 2006.
In 2010, I rented my first workshop to really get my handpan manufacturing project off the ground. At that time, apart from the Hang, the only handpans identified in the world were the Halo, Bellart, Spacedrum and Balisteelpan. They were all very different, mainly due to their unique shell manufacturing techniques. The Hang shells had been press-formed since 2000, Halo's were spun using a beautiful technique they had invented to control the thickness of the material, the first Bellarts were spun using a continuous refining process, Spacedrums were hydroformed, and finally Balisteelpans were handmade by hammering the bottoms of steel cans. My first consideration was therefore how to shape my first steel shells.
In 2011, I created my first handmade stamping tool and my first shells with a diameter of 530 mm. Building on this initial experience, I began contacting industrial prototyping companies to discuss the creation of a much more professional tool. This project was put on hold because the production volume required for such a tool to be economically viable was too high for Delphine and me. There were now two of us learning with the same tool, but we were still very much beginners.
In 2012, spun shells from Pantheon Steel in the USA arrived on the market, costing between 160$ and 200$ each, excluding shipping. Delphine and I had the opportunity to meet with artistic coachbuilders and experiment with other ways of making shells, such as using an olive machine, and it was that year that we presented our first finished instruments to the public.
(first Shellopans made with shell-shaped shells using an olive machine -Pfister-)
In 2013, we had to move the workshop, and this year was largely devoted to creating our new creative space. New tools for manufacturing the shells were tested, such as this prototype automated embossing station built using a tyre changer, roller wheel, conveyor motor, concrete vibrator and electronic frequency converter!
(spinning tool -working- prototype)
2014 was a year when many new apprentice makers were starting projects all over Europe, and it was the right time to revive the idea of making stamped shells with professional tools. I proposed this idea to Ralf in Holland, who was then making his very first instruments by sinking the shells by hand, and he brought together a group of several apprentice makers around the idea of sharing shell production. I suggested that we produce the shells together using the stamping tools that I had already started designing but had put on hold for several years. Other members of the group explored other ideas, such as hydroforming, but the price per shell was very high and this option was not pursued. In the end, a group of seven apprentice manufacturers agreed to take the risk of sharing the order for a first batch of shells, without knowing the quality I would be able to achieve with the low-cost tooling initially planned to support the production of around 1,000 shells. We wanted to set up a non-profit cooperative project by sharing the risk of possible failure.
I then built the stamping tool with an industrial prototyping company based in France and chose two initial batches of steel, 1 mm and 1.25 mm thick, and made the first prototypes... The result, measured by the precision of the thickness distribution across the entire shell, was excellent and proved to be a game changer for the progress of the entire group of early adopters of these shells.
(distribution of thicknesses in a shellopan shell measured using an ultrasonic probe)
For about four years, I oversaw the production of several thousand shells, which became known as Shellopan shells. They were used by various apprentice manufacturers around the world. We also welcomed many visitors to our workshop who wanted to learn the basics of our work. The early participants benefited from raw material production at cost price, and newcomers took care of updating and maintaining the tools by paying a slightly higher price (€38/shell). I faced multiple problems with production, materials, suppliers, difficulties in purchasing steel of the desired quality, etc. The workload for me also became particularly heavy and very difficult to share with the users of the shells. Finally, the tools required significant updates with each production run.
(preparation of shell shipments, each shell is checked, brushed if necessary, each box weighs 30kg...)
In 2016, Colin Foulke documented the hydroforming process, a technique that had already been used by Spacedrum for several years but had never been documented before. I remain convinced that stamping is the best technique for achieving even thickness, but this new technique was a milestone in the history of handpan shell manufacturing, as it made it possible for anyone to make high-quality shells, even in their garage or garden!
(Screenshot from Cfoulke's presentation video showing the layout of a hydroforming station.)
In 2017, demand for raw materials had grown steadily over the years. Our initial intention to help fellow apprentice manufacturers by setting up a cooperative project to share the burden and risks of shell production had turned into subcontracting work. This created economic dependencies and increasing pressure to produce more and more, faster and faster. Other projects for the manufacture of stamped shells geared towards higher volume of production began to take over to keep pace with the exponential growth in handpan manufacturing projects springing up all over the world. Unintentionally, the shape produced since 2014 has become a standard adopted by the majority of new raw material manufacturers.
In 2018, I have stopped reselling Shellopan shells. No longer constrained by production pressures, I have been able to completely transform the tools used to increase the quality of the shells produced, and they are now only used by those closest to the Shellopan workshop.
(the Shellopan stamping tool in 2016)
Since 2020, It has become increasingly difficult to purchase high-quality steel on the market, and shell manufacturers have also increasingly turned to producing stainless steel shells (new diverstity of sound and at the same time easier, less risky and less expensive than producing nitrided steel shells). The largest volume of shell manufacturing/sales is probably achieved in the Netherlands by Ayasa Instruments, whose founder was one of the first participants in the stamped shell project initiated in 2014. This company is in legal dispute with PANArt over copyright issues. PANArt's first claim concerns the lenticular shape, which is entirely linked to the shape of the shell originally used by the handpan maker. For strategic reasons, this legal dispute led to a nearly five-year hiatus in the development of new handpan shapes worldwide.
In 2025, The legal dispute is still ongoing, and the rejection of an appeal created a moment of confusion surrounding the attribution of copyright to PANArt. This resulted in a release of creativity that had been hidden for several years. Even if they were only prototypes, this showed that maker artisans and even Chinese manufacturerswere are already ready with promising new handpan designs. It seems necessary for this dispute to be judged and resolved so that this story of handpan shells, closely linked to the creativity of the makers, can continue!
(two examples of handpan prototypes unveiled in 2025 by Edelweiss and Shellopan)
3) about nitriding steel
The choice of a low-carbon stamping steel (e.g. DC01 to DC05) calls for a treatment designed to modify its mechanical properties (hardness, elastic resistance, work-hardening behavior, etc.). Because of this need for treatment, working with steel is more complicated and expensive than working with stainless (no external treatment needed, no rust risk during manipulation, no need to remove oil before treatment...).
The most widely used principle is nitriding, the principles of which applied to a metal musical instrument were detailed in 2000 by PANArt Hangbau AG (Conference on New Developments of the Steelpan - Paris - 05/20/2000).
We can distinguish 3 approaches to nitriding:
- very short nitriding, creating 3 layers in the material: a combination layer (white layer), a diffusion layer and then the central layer of variable thickness, with little or no change in the material's characteristics. Protection against oxidation is acceptable, but it is possible to attempt to improve it by a post oxidation procedure. In my experience, instruments made with this type of material generally have a longer sustain.
- medium nitriding creates 2 layers in the material, as presented in PANArt publications in 2000: the result is a combination layer followed by a diffusion layer to the core of the material. Surface hardness is around 2x greater than core hardness. This is the type of nitriding we use.
- long nitriding, as proposed in the old PANArt patent, to obtain a certain density of precipitated nitrides. This is a nitriding process that no Handpan manufacturer seems to use. PANArt has been using it since the so-called “integral” Hang. I've never been able to test such a material, so I can't comment on its characteristics.
4) Materials physics and the importance of a scientific approach
It is possible to make musical instruments by simply tuning commercially available shells, but it seems to me that starting a real craft project linked to the physical characteristics of metal should be accompanied by a study of these characteristics. I don't pretend to give a course on this subject, but in order not to be limited to talking about hard or soft metal, I can nevertheless invite readers to find out about the following notions:
- breaking strength
- elongation before break
- elasticity and Young's modulus
- strain hardening
- anisotropy
- fatigue strength
- notion of compressive stress
- notion of annealing
- necking phenomenom
- aging phenomenom
- nitriding principles
Overall, being able to explain the differences between rigidity, strength, stiffness and hardness is a sign of good understanding :)
The challenges in our field of activity would be to understand the impact of all these parameters :
- on the timbre of a note and of an instrument as a whole
- on its style of note preparation and tuning.
Interesting information can be found in the research work of PANArt and Anthony Achong. Daniel Bernasconi of SOMA Sound Scluptures in Switzerland has chosen to publish a synthesis of his research here: “science of sounding steel”.
5) Shellopan workshop
Having a place to work is the very first requirement for making handpans, and I've seen workshops ranging from 5m² to 2000m²...
Ours is a 25m² double garage:
6) Protecting yourself: personal equipment
Maker activity exposes the body to risks of wear and tear, illness and accidents. Here are some of the best protective gear we've found to date:
- hearing protection: 3M PELTOR X5
- anti-vibration gloves: EJENDALS - Tegera 9180 (size a little small, go one size up)
- respiratory protection for grinding or use of solvents: 3M VERSAFLOW TR-600 + M-206 helmet
- chemical protection gloves: ATG MaxyDry
- wrist protection: MID300 (very simple but efficient)
7) Reducing vibrations of the air hammer
For most of handpan makers, the activity involves the use of pneumatic hammers which cause a quantity of vibrations absorbed by the body well in excess of the dose that would be tolerable for a salaried employee. To give you an idea of the orders of magnitude, if I had to recruit someone in France to do this pneumatic hammering work, the level of vibration to which they would be exposed would prevent me from asking them to do more than 8 minutes of this work a day. Exposure to vibrations is responsible for disabling occupational diseases affecting muscles, joints and the nervous system (I leave it to everyone to do their own research on this subject).
To protect my own health, I designed an anti-vibration system that can be adapted to any shaping station. I'm now offering this solution as a group purchase to optimise its cost and make it accessible to other makers. The current solution is dedicated to the ‘GS-0838E’ 1500 stroke/minute hammer and all plastic or Delrin heads, and can work on nitrided steel and stainless steel at up to 5 bar pressure (ideal at 3.5-4 bar and of course less presure).
This solution is based on an articulated arm that can be anchored to the floor, the shaping station or the ceiling (best anchoring position is 45cm above the height of the rim of the shell that need to be shaped, minimum anchoring surface : 12cm round diameter, 4x M10 screws). It allows the hammer's pivot point / locus point to be chosen quickly, while providing resistance to the counter-force from hammering impacts. Added to this is a mechanism that smoothes the hammer's movement in all directions, providing precise guidance while absorbing a large amount of vibration. The operator can hold the hammer without tensing his hand on it, further reducing the level of vibration transmitted to the body.
If you're interested, I'll be happy to welcome you to my workshop for tests by appointment, and you can take away your own anti-vibration kit (bring your own hammers or at least your own heads with M10 threads and your own raw material ready to shape). The kit is made in Europe and costs €2900 excluding VAT (the arm, the rotating attachment, dedicated air hammer connectors, foot pedal with euro air connectors). Contact me by email for more information (matthieu (at) shellopan.fr). Air hammer, hammer heads, air pipe, air compressor are not included.
8) Video resources
Here's a two-part video I made during the “great confinement” to serve as a teaching resource for the science curriculum of certain high school classes in France. There's some general theory on sound, and I end with a demonstration of how to tune a handpan note.
Finally, here is a video showing a range of tuning possibilities for the highest vibration modes of the middle note (shoulder tones), choose english subtitles on youtube :