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Our village church has player piano bells. Only 8 (so it can't play God save the King) but most Sundays Colin plays something to wake us up. Colin restored the
by Peteragain 1y ago
Our village church has player piano bells. Only 8 (so it can't play God save the King) but most Sundays Colin plays something to wake us up. Colin restored the mechanism a few years ago. The holes are too small to pass enough vacuum (sic) to ring 27 tons of bell, to there are 2 banks of "vacuum amplifiers" .. and the vacuum head that reads the paper has a feedback loop to align it with the paper. Wow.
- tgv 1y agoAre you sure it rings the large bells? A carrillon usually has (much) smaller bells. The 50 bells of the carillon in the cathedral here weigh around 25.000kg in total, and are played by hammers, not by traditional "ringing" (which would make it hard to control rhythmically).
- Peteragain 1y agoYes it is hammers, but the big bells. The holes in the paper are 3×1 mm or so, and the hammers are about the size of a sledge hammer, but counter balanced. It definitely needs the vacuum amps.