[Sca-cooks] Bells and their Casting was Cast Iron pots??
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Sun Jun 4 08:35:14 PDT 2006
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
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry
Holt, 07/29/04
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