Chiming profiles

[oakcroft13]

DJB:

> Does anybody know when Taylor's developed their
> 'chiming profile', whereby the front bells of a
> chime are lighter than those in a ring?

I don't know the answer, but I can make two suggestions:
1) Ask Andrew Higson
2) Start with the date of their first true-harmonic carillon (I'm 
sure Carl Scott-Zimmerman can supply this) and start look at chime 
weights either side of this date until you find what you need.

While we are on the subject, an associated and fascinating question 
is: when did UK bell-founders START casting heavy / tall ringing 
trebles? One assumes it was done to make ringing on higher numbers 
(eight, then ten and twelve) easier. I fear the evidence is all but 
destroyed, in that there are very few extant early peals of eight or 
more left (ref other posts on this list).

One could go into a lot of detail on weights and dimensions, but a 
first-cut investigation could probably be accomplished just be 
looking at the tuning of the treble primes in these old peals. It 
could be that in general UK trebles were always cast heavy. It will 
vary from founder to founder, of course, depending on their skill. I 
don't have a lot of recordings of very old bells: a couple of Phelps 
trebles of 1709 and 1738 have quite good primes, Rudhalls seem always 
to have had flat primes, as do some Darbie bells of 1655.

The fascination of this question is that, had the bell-founders not 
followed this path in their designs (thereby diverging from 
Continental practice), then the work of Simpson and Taylors leading 
back to true harmonic tuning would not have been necessary (though 
the developments in the accuracy of tuning would still have been 
needed, of course).

Bill H