`Bell Talk`

by **alana** » Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:47 pm

i'm new to bells. i am keeping an eye out for brass or bronze bells to buy (8"-15"). do all brass and bronze bells have the potential to crack? is that cause the've been dropped?? if a bell chips, does it also tend to crack? - or does it mean that it will tend not to crack? thanks...

by **alana** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:32 pm

nevermind; i think it was a casting fault, in the bell edge i saw

by **hjlong3** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 9:37 pm

All metal bells can be damaged by age and abuse. Most common are the chips & dings at the lip that come with trauma to the lip. Cracks occur if the metal is too hard, cooled iregularly, with casting imperfections, struck with too much force, and as a result of metal fatigue with aging and repeated use. Very cold weather can result in temporary hardening that can increase the brittleness of the bell. Repeated freezing and warming can accelerate the metal fatigue that occurs naturally with age. Very large bells such as the Czar Kolokol in Moscow have excessive weight at the rim relative to the body and the shear weight can cause loss of a large piece of the rim, which happened to the Czar Kolokol.
Harry Long, MD

by **alana** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 5:11 am

i get it! thanks for taking the time to spell all that out for me! where i live it's not that cold so it never occurs to me that something can get cold-damage so bad.

by **admin** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 11:54 am

Hi, Alana,

We have an article on "Bronze Bell Fatigue - Why Bells Crack" on this website at viewtopic.php?f=19&t=729. You may find it of interest.

Admin (Carolyn)

`Bell Talk`

if a bell chips, does that mean it will tend to crack a

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