Modern Machines Cannot Replace Age-Old Bell-Makers’ Craftsmanship.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 22, 17 February 1948, Page 8

Modern Machines Cannot Replace Age-Old BellMakers’ Craftsmanship.

About 4,500 years ago a Chinese Emperor commissioned one of his subjects to cast a set of tuned bells. Since that time the voice of the bell has become a familiar note in virtually every land under the sun.

As traditional as the sounds of its product is the art of bell making. This is one process that has changed but little since the Middle Ages. Bell molds, built of sand, clay and graphite, still'take weeks to make, simply because the mold, is built in layers, and one layer must harden before the second is made. The tin and copper mixture from which the bell met&l is made is stirred by hand with green saplings, because the introduction of any foreign metal into the mixture would deaden the tone of the bell. All bells are made to order, and each presents an individual problem, depending on size, weight, and notes desired. i

Bell making runs in families, and is handed down from father to son. The Meneely plant in Troy, N.Y., is now in its fifth generation of bell making. According to Clinton Meneely, the only modern change has been the development of the electrical ringing ‘‘equipment.