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<DIV><BR><FONT size=2 face=Arial>CJP wrote:</FONT><BR>For what it's worth, my
impresson is that the use of "bent" sliders is <BR>probably a mid- to late-
C19th thing. Before that, other forms of <BR>setting devices (spur stays and
pendulum sliders) were more common. But <BR>I don't think I've ever seen any
curved stays or sliders that I would <BR>confidently place much before
1850</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Chris's contribution set me thinking, and off hand
I don't recall any attributable installations having curved sliders earlier than
the mid 19th century. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Certainly the straight slider was the
most common device before 1700 (indeed I respectfully query Chris's
statement that "other setting devices....were more common.") My own observations
specifically in such varied locations as the Bristol area, Norfolk, London and
Kent indicate that the horizontal straight slider was fairly normal in the 17th
and 18th centuries. Where there was a lack of room the stay was sometimes placed
adjacent to the wheel and the metal latchet device, usually with a horizontal
setting pendulum to replace the slider, began to be used. It is largely
with late 18th - early 19th century installations that I have noticed a specific
concern to make the conventional stay shorter, at first by shaping the pivot end
of the slider so as to raise the sliding end. Late 19th century woodcuts
generally, though by no means always, indicate that the curved slider developed
from this, the purpose being to have the whole of the slider of a constaint
thickness, the pivot end lyng flat on the centre block (slider
pin).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>The curve itself was, of
course, partly to allow the stay to be made reasonably short,
partly to allow the flight of the clapper to swing clear of it. Some developed
this to the extreme, as many of Gillett & Johnston's later
installations testify. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>As to the use of the latchet slider as an
alternative, it is by no means unusual especially in mid-19th century
installations (as for example the entire ring of ten at St Barnabas, Pimlico),
and not always as a means of saving room. They became unpopular because of the
tendency to cause bells to lift from plain bearings when "bumped" so close to
the point of rotation.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>DLC</FONT></DIV>
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