G&J tuning (Leicester St Nicholas)

[Richard Offen]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "David Cawley" <dcawley at w...> 
wrote:
> Bill said he wondered if they actually tuned the upper partials on 
this bell, so here are the figures somewhat as they appear in the 
book:
> 
> Leicester St Nicholas
> Bell no 6759
> 7th December 1949
> Diameter 48 1/2" 
> Soundbow As cast 3 5/8" 
> Tuned 3 3/16" 
> Weight As cast 28 1 12 
> Tuned 22 0 0 1117.65 Kg
> Tunings 6 1 12 
> Note 
E 
N. B.Despd weight is the tuned weight
> VIBRATIONS
> Correct
> Cast With itself With peal Tuned
> 197 184 163 163 + 1/9
> 384 368 326 326 + 2/9
> 444.5 441.5 391.25 391 + 1/4
> 644.5 552 489 489 + 1/4
> 735 736 652 651+ 1/2
> 
> C.P. 751 727
> A 945 762 
> B 1094 800
> C 1087 807
> A, B, C bracketted together 815 
> 
> OU 1087 978 971
> V.I 1488 1092.5
> I.X 1602 1267
> ON 1490 1304 1331
> " 1464
> " 1488
> " 1482
> HF 1936 1739 1738
> OPV 2154 1959
> ?+VI 2752 2159.5
> 4N 2888 2608 2614
> 
> Recast three old bells to make one new bell (extract ends)
> 


By 1949 G & J were exprimenting with upper partial tuning. As with 
all of the harmonics in a bell, you cannot isolate and tune 
individual harmonics, so the upper partial tuning was done in 
conjunction with tuning the main five tones. However the cutting 
patterns differed in order to make sure that the upper partials were 
affected in the desired way.

"In tune with itself" means the minimum required to make the bell a 
harmonically tuned one. "With the peal" is what was done to get the 
bell to a recognised note (not really necessary with a single bell, 
but what has become the norm in the last hundred or so years).

Hope this helps?