[Bell Historians] Taylor's 1895

[Andrew Bull]

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* * I'm not sure that I blame them either. Bells on well
engineered, 
> well maintained plain bearings go superbly well and, often, are not 
> subject to the 'suck and blow' that you sometimes get with ball 
> bearings. 

Yes, they're fine where they are a) in good condition and b) regularly
oiled. However, the majority of plain bearings left now are getting pretty
knackered and given that a large proportion of ringers don't know what's
above the ceiling boss then ball bearings, which don't require regular
oiling, are perhaps a better option.

I understand that plain bearings are useful where there is a lot of tower
movement, as the intertia of ball bearings can make the tower movement
affect the bells more than if the bells were on plain bearings. I noticed a
few years ago that the front three at St Mary's, Warwick, as still on plain
bearings. Given that this is a tower which moves a lot, I wonder whether
this is the reason?

David

I second what Richard said - Taylor plain bearings work extremely well when
properly maintained. The problem is that a lot of people don't seem to know
how to maintain them, and put grease in them. I used to look after the bells
at Llangybi, Mon, a Taylor installation of 1902/7. The glorious 1907 12 cwt
Taylor tenor used to go well even with just grease and pigeon muck as
lubricant, and went like a dream once we had cleaned out the bearings, and
re-instated the wick feeds with the correct type of oil. The fifth - on 1907
Taylor plain bearings - goes so well that it will actually bounce off the
stay at handstroke if set at backstroke and then tipped over the balance and
allowed to fall. I found that the bearings only needed topping up with oil
every couple of months or so - just a little squirt through the hole in the
bearing cover.
Regrettably the we found that the gudgeons and bearings on the sixth and
seventh were rather worn, and we took the headstocks to Taylors to have them
fitted with new gudgeons and modern ball-bearings. We also had all the
pulley boxes fitted with new pulleys running on ball-bearings, with the
result and the go and handling of the whole ring left nothing to be desired.

Andrew Bull



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