[Bell Historians] Re: Historical differences between long-standing bell foundries?

[Matthew]

Fascinating.  "Sand" casting is pretty high-tech these days although the tooling costs for larger bells might get a touch prohibitive.  The advent of low cost CNC machining also makes one wonder about its applications in bell-making...



--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, Hayden Charles <hcharles at ...> wrote:
>
> Matthew wrote on 27/04/2012 07:35:
> 
> > The amount of labor that goes into each bell is remarkable.  I wonder why more progressive casting techniques have not been employed?
> >
> > A very, very fascinating subject...
> >
> 
> There was an article in the 'Ringing World' about the sharp second 
> produced by Hayward Mills for Southwark Cathedral (bell is dated 2005, 
> RW index suggests pp 589-592 but I don't have the copy to hand). Hayward 
> Mills designed the bell but the casting was produced by a Sheffield 
> foundry using a computer-driven sand-casting process. The design had 
> extra metal incorporated to allow tuning. The article claimed that the 
> bell was so close to the dimensions specified that the next attempt 
> might dispense with the extra metal. Taylor's continue to use 
> traditional methods since amalgamating with Hayward Mills so perhaps the 
> 'modern' casting approach is not cost-effective.
> 
> Hayden Charles
>