Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-09-28
cow BELLS.
Interesting Processes by Which
They Are Made, Tempered and
Furnished.

Interesting Processes by Which
They Are Made, Tempered ana
Furnished.
(St. Louis Globe-Democrat)
On a hilly little side street in the tree
EMPOWERED town of Collinsvile is hidden
queer factory where are made the COW
bells that: go jingling musically up hill and
down dale over such widely diversing
paths.
neat little business office opens into
the wide-spreading, shadowy place where
in Is housed the machinery of the plant
as well as its big hot furnace. The metal
for the bells is received in the shape of
large fiat sheets of thin iron direct from
the rolling mills. These sheets are passed
under heavy steam-run cutter, which
trims out the properly shaped pieces, re-
semblng patterns for a double blade axe.
These pieces are taken in hand by a
workman who fastens into the center
ring for the clapper and spans it with a
little iron strap for a handle, and then
the piece is bent down into the familiar
bell shape and it's sides riveted together
on the anvil
Although the bell has grown into recog-
nizable shape. it lacks tone and color, and
these are gained by coating Of brass
and a bath in a fiery furnace At this
stage the bells, which run in six or eight
sizes from the little three-inch sheep bells
to the seven-inch COW bells, are placed
one within another until a nest of four
or five is formed. The spaces between
are filled with crushed charcoal and brass
filings. Two nests are then placed to-
gether within plumbago cvrucible, an
unglazed eathernware jar, whose lid of
the same material is hcA in place by
plastering of wet clay, and the whole is
ready for the furnace.
The furnace is a great square of fire
brick and iron, with a large firebox in
which roars a furious soft-coal fire.
There is a side door opening into this
chamber, filled with a shimmering, rosy,
heat, that the crucibles are placed, some
two dozen at time. Within these heat
resisting crucibles a mysterious process
goes on, for the brass changes both form
and place and spends itself in a thin coat
over the imprisoned bells.
After about forty-five minutes the fur
mace door is again opened, and within are
seen the red-hot crucibles, which are
lifted out on a long-handled shovel and
laid in a row on the ground out in the
open air. When cooled to a dull, dark
red, the lids are pried off with a sharp
iron pick and hammer, and with long
handled pinchers he throws the bells into
tubs of water to cool and temper them.
When cold they are ready for FURNISH
ing, which Office they are made to per-
form for each other by inclosing a lot of
them in a big wooden cylinder, which is
revolved by steam, and the friction Of the
bells against each other brightens them.
Sometimes a lot Of leather scraps are
thrown In, which assist in the polishing.
AS the tumbling bells make a deafening
noise, the cylinder is shut away in a
tiny room by itself.
The bell tongues are made in foundries,
and come in all sizes, and are composed
of a wire tipped at one end by an iron
ball, while the other is bent into a hook
and clinched through the clapper ring,
and 10! the bell is finished.
Many years ago the first bells Of the
place were cut and made by hand and
bronzed two at time in little clay
wrapped iron receptacle buried in a large
fire kept aglow by hand-worked bellows,
the process taking three hours.
From 10000 to $1,000 bells are made
yearly in this little factory, and through
the wholesale hardware houses are ship
ped to all parts of this country and to
places beyond the sea. It would be in
teresting to follow the bells from the fac
tory in that quiet little street to their
final destinations so widely separated.
To the great cattle ranches of the West
were sent recently a lot Of the bells
toned in sets of an octave each, and the
bell bearers among the shifting herds
answered each other in musical chime.
It was no easy task to tune the different
bells, for the notes could not be repre-
scented by a mere difference in size, but
had to be evoked by patient shaping with
a hammer, the flaring of the mouth of the
bell raising the key of its voice. The
ranchmen claim that bells echoing in
tunes across the silent plains deter the
wolves from attacking the herds.