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

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 4, 2006, at 11:23 AM, Daniel Phelps wrote:

> Was written:
>
> Well, they did repair or redo the Liberty Bell. It then cracked
> again, later. However, I believe the Liberty Bell, and I imagine most
> bells, is cast of brass, not iron. I think iron would have a horrible
> tonal quality compared to brass.
>
> Bronze not brass is what was then used in bell casting.  The entry  
> in Volume
> 1 of my EB printed MDCCLXXI:
>
> "Bell, a well known machine, ranked by muficians among the mufical
> inftruments of percuffion.
>
> 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.
>
> Bell-metal is prohibited to be imported, as are hawk-bells."
>
> There is a multi page entry on foundery or foundry with two pages  
> on that of
> bells in Volume II.
>
> It is interesting that no mention of zinc is made under the bell  
> entry but
> under chemistry's subentry "of Tin" in volume II is:
>
> "If, on the contrary, to one part of tin ten parts of copper be added,
> together with a little zinc, a femi-metal to be considered  
> hereafter, fro
> this combination there refults a metallic compound, which is hard,  
> brittle,
> and very fonorous; that is used for cafting bells: This compofition is
> called bronze and bell-metal."

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...

Adamantius



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