Casting bells

    Well rung hand-bells are a truly delightful sound, which I
don't get to experience half often enough.  I once had the job of
specifying all the ancillary fittings for a multi-purpose building
that was to be used for part of the time as a Christian church, and
I included a small peel of bells, specifying that they had to come
from the Whitechapel foundry. Pity it was axed in a sweep of cost
saving. 

Yes, I was speaking in terms of hand bells and such - I know (not
from experience) the methods you talk about, and some giant bells
aren’t moved at all, just formed, left in one place, and poured. I
made some bells about 3" tall (essentially the Liberty Bell in look) -
Lost wax casting- Yes, that was my drift…

    Well rung hand-bells are a truly delightful sound ...
Yes, I was speaking in  terms of hand bells and such ...

Is this a discussion on bell alloys? I’d have thought that a
silver-based alloy for bells might best be around about 80/20 Ag/Cu,
or possibly better 50/50. The harder the alloy the better the sound,
right? The bigger the bell the deeper the tone?

So a 2 metre diameter silver shibuichi bell might be nice :wink:

Bri

B r i a n A d a m
B u s h J e w e l l e r y W o r k s h o p s
Auckland NEW ZEALAND
www.adam.co.nz/workshops/high_school

The original thoughts on this thread were, as is so often the case,
about something entirely different than this - the beauty and wonder
of Orchid, I guess. Threadsjust go every which way. There is an
alloy that is called “Bell Metal”, which, as I recall, is 80-20 bronze
(could recall wrongly, but it’s something like that). My bell of
about 4" tall is made of Sterling Silver, off the shelf, and has a
very nice, sweet, and plenty loud, tone. I think that there is a lower
limit of hardness - Lead, 24k gold, and probably fine silver would
not work at all. but beyond that you could probably use about
anything, as long as the properties (castability, etc.) are OK.
Again, Is Perfection Necessary?!? There’s a reason why it’s called
"Bell Metal" If you use some alloy, and it gives you 98%
“Bell-Ness”, me, I’d call that fine>…

Not sure if this has been suggested, but why not just buy a set of
cheap metal bells and suspend one inside your silver bell.

... There is an alloy that is called "Bell Metal", which, as I
recall, is 80-20 bronze 

That seems about right. Years ago a man called Dan Weinstein sent
this to ArtMetal:

       		              |Copper | Tin  |Zinc |Lead |Silver |Iron

Alarum Bell at Rouen  | 76.1  | 22.3 | 1.6 | ..  |  1.6  | ..  
Bell at Ziegenhain  .  | 71.48 | 33.59| ..  | 4.04|  ..   | 0.12
 "   "  Darmstadt   . | 73.94 | 21.67| ..  | 1.19|  0.17 | ..  
 "   "  Paris .  .  . | 72.0  | 26.56| ..  | ..  |  1.44 | ..  
Tam-tam    .  .  .  . | 78.51 | 10.27| ..  | 0.52|  0.18 | ..  
                    /|  10   |  4   | 1.5 | ..  |  0.5  | ..  
Bells of Japanese   < |  10   |  2.5 | 0.5 | 1.33|  ..   | ..  
origin,"Karakane"   \|  10   |  3   | 1   | 2   |  1/2  | ..  

Brian