Building a new wheel
The wheel on the fifth bell started to fall to pieces.
A rather rapid application of glue and MDF connecting strips has lasted for 5 years …
but for how much longer?
A wheel is a complex structure of oak spokes that is made in two semicircles, bolted together. They support a steamed ash “sole” that carries the rope which is held in the channel by elm “shrouds”.
Rebuilding a wheel is a significant piece of precision joinery.
The rope and wheel are what allow a ringer to control the bell as it swings through 3600 at up to 30mph
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When I first learned to ring a bell (some 62 years ago) one of the first things that happened was that the wheel of my bell collapsed. (They weren’t great bells!).
As I had been introduced to the band to help as a woodworker, it was my task to rebuild the wheel. My first bell ringing task – and a significant lesson to a schoolboy joiner about the importance of absolute accuracy!