[Bell Historians] Bellfounding story

[David Cawley]

MessageThe replacement 3rd at Eastry is not one of Loughborough's glories either! 

DLC
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andrew Higson 
  To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:13 PM
  Subject: RE: [Bell Historians] Bellfounding story


  A good yarn and the identities were so cleverly disguised!

  The incident occurred on 22nd October 1975 and the bells involved were one of the many ill fated Liberty bells that we were casting for WBF and the replacement 3rd for Eastry in Kent.

  The story varies a bit in that the latter bell was tuned quite a bit before the notes suddenly did a nose dive, presumably as the bell gave way and a replacement had to be made. The liberty bell was scrapped without being touched further.

  The culprit must have had a large locker. Some sources suggest speculum metal should have a minimum of 33% tin, which meant that he would have been secreting about 400lbs of tin ingot. I guess the percentage wasn't that high, but high enough to render the bell useless - I wonder what would have happened if the bell had been successfully tuned to the right notes and hung.....

  Andrew

  -----Original Message-----
  From: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:bellhistorians at IK7n3koV42nfgfEvYGrc3dXZFioSdcP_6LREKXeatCu4jL1SFZAwWo1GeXULcBYOQIsLsIhfeYaig_WPYGKNck_QQC1V.yahoo.invalidom] On Behalf Of Bill Hibbert
  Sent: 30 August 2006 17:31
  To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Bell Historians] Bellfounding story


  I finally met Robert Perrin last week after corresponding for years. 
  I won't bore you all with discussions of bell acoustics but I will 
  pass on the following story he told me . . .

  A numbr of years ago, an employee of some bellfoundry in the Midlands 
  hatched a plot with accomplices to steal the foundry's stock of tin. 
  The theft was successful, but the employee chose to take his share of 
  the proceeds not in cash but in tin, which he hid in his locker in 
  the foundry. When the police arrived at the foundry to investigate 
  the theft, the employee lost his nerve and threw the tin into the 
  furnace just as a bell was about to be cast.

  There is another alloy of copper and tin as well as bell metal, 
  called speculum, with a much higher propertion of tin. Speculum is 
  white and shiny and used to be used to make the mirrors of 
  telescopes. The foundry staff were amazed when they took the bell 
  that had just been cast out of the mould, to find that it was white. 
  When upended and struck, it made no musical note, and after a few 
  hammer blows, collapsed into a pile of fragments 'like glass breaking 
  in a Tom and Jerry cartoon'.

  The theiving employee was charged, did time, and is said to have 
  later run his own business casting handbells somewhere in south 
  Derbyshire.

  Bill H



              
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