The Mould

A new Taylor bell is cast from a mould which is painstakingly hand-crafted in two parts - the core which gives the inner profile of the bell and the case which gives the outer profile of the bell. The bell can be beautifully decorated and carry a commemorative inscription to customer's requirements. The decoration, inscription and founders mark are carefully impressed into the case, thus producing the decoration on the outside surface of the bell. The core and case are then brought together, clamped and sealed to form the completed mould. The mould is placed in a sand pit with sand placed around it. The molten metal is degassed and properly alloyed before being poured into a header box on top of the mould. It is then allowed to flow under control to fill the space between the two parts of the mould.

Breaking Out

After a few days the casting is cool enough to be removed from the mould and is thoroughly wire brushed. The mould is destroyed in removing the bell casting which means every bell is unique.

Tuning

The bell casting is then taken to the tuning shop where it is placed, mouth upwards, on a large vertical lathe which has a revolving turntable. The bell is struck with special mallets to vibrate the metal in the areas which produce the main harmonics. After assessment by the Bell Master, the Bell Tuner removes small chips of metal uniformly from the inside of the bell until the vibrations of each of the main harmonics reach the correct frequency.

Taylor Five Tone Principle

Taylor's introduced their five tone principle of bell tuning in 1896. This produces the purity and sweetness of tone and allows the bell to sound with full and rich mellowness. This gives Taylor bells their special characteristic and sets them apart from all other cast bronze bells. The Bell Master and the Bell Tuner work on five principle harmonics, the hum, fundamental, tierce, quint and nominal but these in turn influence and affect many others. When the correct frequency for each of these harmonics has been achieved, the bell is in tune with itself. In a set of bells, each bell is tuned using the same standards applied to its own frequencies and thus each bell in the set is not only in tune with itself, but also with each bell in the set.