Stockport St George, and Mears & Stainbank tuning

[Richard Offen]

> 
> In the report on the Coventry bells, Bert Hughes gives the 'tap 
> tones' measured with 'specially tested forks' and again quotes the 
> half nominal rather than the nominal as the 'main note' of the bell.
> 
> All this provides strong evidence that M&S were tuning strike 
> pitches, not nominals, at this time, even though they were using 
> tuning forks.
> 
> Does anyone know if this was actually so, and if so, the procedure 
> they used to do this? They can't have been tuning with beats, as 
> there is nothing to beat against at the strike pitch.
> 
> Bill H
>

Nigel Taylor will be able to tell us more, but at the time Stockport 
were put in, Whitechapel were making a set of tuning forks for each 
ring they produced (I believe they still have all the sets in their 
archive).

If I remember the process correctly, as related to me by Bill Hughes, 
forks were made to correspond to the strike note of each bell as 
cast.   The tuning forks were then taken to a quiet corner of the 
foundry and 'adjusted' to give a set of forks that sounded in tune to 
the tuner.   These forks were then used to adjust the strike note of 
each bell, presumably by ear and not by placing the fork on the bell 
to get sympathetic resonance.

Bill Hughes always used to quote the note of a bell giving a 
frequency as half that of the nominal.

Hope this sheds some light on the matter.

Richard