Bell diameters

[Mike Chester]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "Bickerton, Roderic (SELEX 
GALILEO, UK)" <Roderic.Bickerton at ...> wrote:
>
> 
>  The latest Dove policy, regarding PNBR:
> 
>  
> 
> "Our software has now been re-designed in such a way as to ignore,
> automatically, changes in diameter of less than 1.5%"
> 
>  
> 
> I submit this is appallingly crude, not acceptable.
> 
> It represents about 3/4" of an inch on a 24cwt bell.
> 
> It is about 3 times to lax, 0.5% is not exactly difficult to 
achieve,
> 
> for a well made and undamaged bell.
> 
>  
> 
> Why corrupt or refuse good data just to avoid having to comment 
bells
> which due to poor casting or skirting produce excess variation 
depending
> on where they are measured?
> 
>  
> 
> Its seriously unjustifiable, in comparison to the tiny changes of 
weight
> or pitch accepted, being equivalent to about 1cwt on a 24cwt bell.
> 

There were some very small differences being entered into the system 
that could, more than likely than not, be the result of inaccurate 
measuring in a confined space or, perhaps, a tape measure that was 
not as precise as it might be.  John does change things that come 
from the bellhangers/foundries.  

Weight changes are very often from research into foundry records, 
when bells are rehung and re-weighed or from weight charts supplied 
from foundries and are therefore different from diamater changes. I 
know of only one occasion* when a bell has been weighed locally in a 
tower and there cannot be many more than this  

(Clue - it is currently lying in its pit!)

Mike