Does anyone have or know where a guy can get a pattern to make sliegh bells. Any help would be appreciated. Tried google...no luck.

John

Sleigh Bells
Is this the type bell you are looking for?

Some different styles can be seen at this link:

Antique Sleigh Bells

Where is page 5?

Yes Glenn that is the kind I want to forge if you have page 5 It would be appreciated

they r fun to make and they make eyes wide

here's the link:
JingleBell < BlacksmithInfo < TWiki

Jingle Bells
Zoeller also sells the blanks for $1 per plus shipping.
Phil

Richard and Phil,
Thank you very much, I will let you know how they turn out.

John:)

Guys, Thanks for the links! Merry Christmas!

Good morning all

Here is our contribution the the sleigh bell thread. Clear Creek Historical Park (Golden Colorado) has an annual candle light walk (tonight) and part of the walk includes a stroll by the blacksmith shop. This year we decided to forge bells for the demo and this is the result. -grant

PS I must run for now, when I get back I will resize the insert to a manageable size.

Thankyou all for an interesting and 'different' thread!

Well Christmas has come and gone but I did get a chance today to make some bells. I will take some more pictures tomorrow showing the swages and tooling I made to make them and hopefully some better pics of both size bells. Well anyway I got to make bells today. Not having any luck loading the pic so I'll try again tomorrow. Thanks for all the reply's, I appreciate the help with the bells.

John

Made this bell for my mom. She uses it to get my dad's attention - he has hearing issues. The bell is 3.5 inches across the base and make from 1/8 plate. I used a 1in ball bearing for the jingle ball.

Will try this again.....Never mind

I read once that using a high carbon steel will improve the "ring" of bells and similar sounding devices.

Can anyone confirm or deny?

Thanks,
Dave

I have read about high carbon steel sounding better from several sources too, but do not have experience on it. It is on Ron Reil's website, for one location.
http://ronreil.abana.org/gallery.shtml
It's buried in with a description of how he made a triangular gong

quoting Ron Reil from above site. Emphasis added.

"The three snub-end scrolls were made free-form on the anvil using only three different hand hammers, anvil, and a file. The chalk line drawing on the shop floor, visible under the scrolls in this preweld shop floor layout image, was used only as a very rough guide during the forming. All forming was done hot. The scrolls are made from 1/2" square mild steel rod. The clangor, or clapper, was forged from a 3/4" square bar, and the power hammer was used to draw it down to near its final shape. The scroll ended triangular gong was forged from an old 3/4" stock diameter coil spring. The power hammer was used to draw out the ends for the scrolls, and a bending fork held in the vise was used for the two triangle corner bends. Using a coil spring for source stock produces a much better tone when the gong is struck than mild steel. The tone in this gong is very clear and musical sounding, and will continue to ring long after it is struck. I does need to have a leather insulator pad between the suspension hook and the gong to prolong its ring."


Phil

Thanks Phil,

I've made similar dinner gongs from mild steel...the sound is OK but not great.

I'd try the coil but it would take 3 times longer to straighten enough stock than it would make the gong...that guy must have time on his hands...ha!

Dave

Dave, I make a triangle dinner bell and sell them at demos. I use 5/8" sucker rod. They ring loud and clear!! :)

i also make dinner bells with a hi carbon rod when i can get um (potatoe digger rod) ... i found out the place i get um from is makeing um from 5160 . but customers really dont notice the difference if i use mild or digger rod ... but when i can get the digger rod the price is so reasonable (last time FREE) that i will use um any time i can .i also make a heart bell and they usually ring lousy but people buy um anyway... its the look not really the function ...

Thanks for the info guys. I'll have to do a side by side comparison of the mild vs. high carbon steel. I'm sure the average person wouldn't notice as the gongs are as much a novelty as a functional piece. But, I would know and I'd like to get a better sound than what I've got now.

Dave

Thanks for sharing this, I will definately try make some.

Just as a side note I have experienced Aluminium pipes to have a very clear, high-pitched ring with an amazing sustain. Don't know if it's worth the difference, but it would be interesting to make a bell out of it and test the sound.

On 11/30/2009 at 2:06 PM, rthibeau said:

here's the link:
JingleBell < BlacksmithInfo < TWiki

I'm looking for Page 5 of this article: http://www.bgcmonline.org/docs/janfeb07.html that explains how to make sleigh bells.  The TWiki link (quoted) is now broken.  If anyone has the article, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would post a current link to it.  Thanks!

On 1/18/2010 at 7:58 AM, Bendik said:

Just as a side note I have experienced Aluminium pipes to have a very clear, high-pitched ring with an amazing sustain. Don't know if it's worth the difference, but it would be interesting to make a bell out of it and test the sound.

This past summer, I visited with the founder of Woodstock Chimes in NY's Hudson Valley. He told me his first set of wind chimes was made from an aluminum lawn chair frame!

(He also showed me some experimental percussion instruments, each with an array of tuned steel rods to create all sorts of weird sustained overtones and harmonics. Very cool.)

Getting back to sleigh bells, there is a pair of videos on YouTube showing how one guy does it:

Part 1

Part 2