[Bell Historians] Moseley Steel Bells

[fartwell2000]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "Peter Rivet" <peter at ...> wrote:
>

> 
> My personal feeling is that it's important to have some ringable steel bells
> retained, but having rung on some elsewhere I think it would be unfair to
> judge their musical qualities by the Moseley ones.  It's unlikely that
> anyone would want to go to the expense of hanging the redundant ring from
> Moseley for ringing, and I suspect the same applies to the bells currently
> at Beamish (are they from Stainland?  I'm not sure).  It might be best to
> concentrate on maintaining one or two steel rings in places with a
> relatively dry climate.  In the north of England that means east of the
> Pennines.  Perhaps those at Willington in Co. Durham would be good
> candidates.
> 
> Peter Rivet
> 


Perhaps a better example than Willington-and far closer to you (and I) are the six at Ingleton.

Still hung for ringing-but chimed from an Ellacombe, the Ellacombe has no hammers, there are eye bolts fited to the clappers (as per Bolton le Sands), but the wheels have bolts going into the frame to stop them swinging when chimed. All ringing fittings are intact and the bells still hang on gudgeons which sit in plain brasses, in the 2 tier timber frame.

Ringing stopped there after a landslip split the chancel floor, the the late Cyril Crossthwaite (from Preston) had rung on them, possibly in a peal, but he had definitly rung on them.

Ingleton, though a bit rusty (as can be expected) are one of the better sets of unrestored steel castings, and don't sound too bad-and if a structural survey cleared the tower for ringing, then the bells would be well worthy of whatever corrective tuning was possible and a rehang-it really can be done with workable steel castings, look at the back six at Hale.

Hale are a nice six, spoilt by two "old style" (well they sound old style) conventional Trebles from one of the continental foundries.

If steel bells had to be preserved for usage, in an attempt to improve badly rusted ones, I wonder what would happen if one was shot blast then pit marks/holes, filled with some form of plasma spray technique? It shouldn't affect the principle of tuning-or would it?

Alan