[Bell Historians] Video of Verdin's Sand-Casting Process

[Carl S Zimmerman]

The statements made in the video are a mixture of fact and sales talk, and it's not always easy to tell which is which.  While the company is the oldest tower clock maker in the USA (and by far the oldest family-owned business in the state of Ohio), it is the youngest bellfoundry in this country, not the oldest.  They could instead have boasted correctly about their decades-long relationship with Petit & Fritsen, as American representatives of that foundry, from which they have obtained many bells for carillons, chimes and tower clocks.  (Before WW II, they obtained clock bells from American bellfoundries, principally Vanduzen.)

To answer Matthew's question:  No, what the video shows is not Verdin's traveling foundry, and cannot be the process used in that foundry.  The process shown, using a bell-shaped aluminum form, could produce only completely plain bells.  Their traveling foundry, on the other hand, produces ceremonial bells with traditional raised ornamentation, and so it must use a somewhat more traditional mo[u]lding process.

Carl Scott Zimmerman
Saint Louis, Missouri, USA -
- 19th c. home of at least 35 bell founders or resellers
Tel. +1(314)821-8437
Webmaster for www.TowerBells.org
  *  Avocation:   tower bells
  *  Recreation:  handbells
  *  Mission:     church bells


--- On Sun, 4/29/12, Matthew <slosomething at kBFRcLMtCZLl80k8eV_oIKgKqSdSk4idmSo-eq8td5KiWCDwG6B6gUzHoPu3dHNm844IRHHrQ38PPNK8pBniOSs.yahoo.invalid> wrote:

> From: Matthew <slosomething at kBFRcLMtCZLl80k8eV_oIKgKqSdSk4idmSo-eq8td5KiWCDwG6B6gUzHoPu3dHNm844IRHHrQ38PPNK8pBniOSs.yahoo.invalid>
> Subject: [Bell Historians] Video of Verdin's Sand-Casting Process
> To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sunday, April 29, 2012, 9:09 PM
> 
> Here's a video of Verdin's Sand-Casting Process.
> 
> http://www.verdin.com/bells/bell-casting.php
> 
> Quite different from the traditional bell casting
> processes.  I wonder if this is Verdin's traveling
> foundry?
>