HotRod Cowbell: This is a drummer's cowbell that Rodney (my band's drummer) and I made almost entirely from found material. The main body of the bell is an attachment from a muffler that was discovered on the side of the road on my way to lab one day. A half-hour of drilling, polishing and grinding later we had a pretty nice cowbell to play on. (the grinding was important to make the 'lip' of the bell dull, so that it wouldn't cut his sticks) It's attached to the vertical post of the hi-hat above and below with some neoprene that we stripped the cloth off of, to make it sticky with respect to the metal. The neoprene is held in place tightly with cable-ties.

The verdict, according to Rodney: it sounds great! (but needs to be mounted somewhere other than on the hi-hat, since it tends to get in the way of hi-hat playing as-is)