[Sca-cooks] Bells and their Casting was Cast Iron pots??

[Daniel Phelps]

I quoted regards bronze:

"> The metal of which is made, is a compofition of tin and copper, or
> pewter
> and copper,; the proportion of one to the other is almoft twenty
> pounds of
> pewter, or twenty-three pounds of tin, to one hundred weight of
> copper."

Was written:

That's as may be; the Liberty Bell contains, as per

http://home.att.net/~honorAmerica/libertybell/history/
bellfacts.htm#DetailedComposition

Material % Composition
Copper 64.95 - 73.10
Tin 24.00 - 30.16
Lead 1.30 - 5.47
Zinc 0.25 - 1.65
Iron 0.00 - 0.87
Silver 0.14 - 0.26
Antimony 0.08 - 0.18
Arsenic 0.19 - 0.42
Gold 0.02 - 0.06
Nickel 0.00 - 0.28


I don't know if all these other metals constitute statistically
insignificant impurities, or how much lead and/or zinc are supposed
to be in brass...

The metals of significance are probably copper, tin, lead and zinc as
according to my Volume III of the EB, published in MDCCLXXI, pewter is made
"...by mixing at the rate of a hundred weight of tin with fifteen pounds of
lead and fix pounds of brafs, see Metals.

Befides this compofition, which makes the common pewter, there are other
kinds compounded of tin, regulus of antimony, bifmuth and copper, in feveral
proportions.

Thus my understanding is that the L bell was made, per the EB printed
relatively close in time to its casting, of bronze which was formulated
presumably by mixing copper and common pewter.  The hit of antimony suggest
that there might have been an admixture of some of the less commonly
formulated pewter in the melt as well.  Brass of the period, again per my
EB, does not have lead or zinc in the mix but just copper and tin.  Bronze
was cast but not worked, i.e. hammered cold as it was brittle.  Brass was
worked cold and in some formulations heated.  I'm uncertain regarding the
casting of brass as found in funeral brasses of that time period.

Daniel