[Bell Historians] Late-Victorian bell hangers

[Bickerton, Roderic K (SELEX) (UK)]

Seconded. For a very long time before and after that Tailors were using
flat faced gudgeons plates only located by two rather under size u
bolts. I seem to have spent decades trying to tighten and align this
appalling arrangement in various towers to stop bumping around and get
the bell to go reasonably only to have the bell start going really badly
after someone has thwacked the stay and the plate has twisted to the
limit of the play in the u bolt holes miss aligning the gudgeon.
Because it is now tight the plate does not slip back.
This is FAR worse than a strap gudgeon. 

> Taylors in the 1870s and 80s were putting in some really skimpy oak 
> frames
with poor, flimsy fittings, including wheels which were ready to start
falling apart within a decade or two. 

Post Simpson Guillett and Johnson installations are notorious for under
sized double row ball races collapsing, and for steel wheel shroud joint
filets rusting and expanding, so there hanging was still questionable
long after the Victorian era.