Update on my Schulmerich Bell project

[Rebecca Wingler]

Last summer I asked for advice on cleaning the inside of a set of very dirty bells I had purchased second hand. Time has been very limited on when I could work on things, but over the summer I was able to disassemble all the bells (3 1/2 octaves), replace the small parts and get them mostly back in working order with the help of one of my bell ringers. We used several of the bells as duplicates when videoing our Christmas bell program for the church. I was able to loan out a few of them to a friend who also directs a choir with the caveat of "you can use them, but you have to polish them."

After seeing the amazing job he did on those borrowed bells, I asked if he would help me do the whole set. I am happy to say that Jim Bob & I finished up the set today. I am blown away with the final result.

Someone asked me last summer if I could post pictures of before and after. Does this forum allow photos to be attached to posts? If so, I would be delighted to share photos of bells that were unusable last summer, along with how they look today.

Thanks!

Rebecca Wingler

[Elke White]

Can you also share your technique for polishing the inside of the Schulmerich bells?  I've always only washed the castings with soap and water and then polished the outside with my church's Schullies, but at 25 years of age, the insides are pretty dark and could use some sprucing up

Elke White

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[Rebecca Wingler]

Elke,

I will detail the process we went through a little later today, but it might not be the best thing for every set of bells. However, this set was not only covered in hand prints (yes full hand prints, not just fingerprints) on the outside, but more of the same inside most of the bells. What had been recommended as a cleaning option was not working to remove these on either the outside or inside. I will try to attach photos later so you can see the difference. Since this set is owned by me and not the church, I was more than willing to try whatever it took to make a difference and get them back into a usable, working instrument.

Thanks!

Rebecca

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[Rebecca Wingler]

Sorry, time got away from me. Here are some before & after shots of the bells. I am not real sure if the before pictures show just how dirty the bells were, but the bass bells were covered in hand prints - you could see the entire hand in some instances, both outside and inside the bell casting. The smaller bells were more of a matte finish over the entire bell. I am assuming it was multiple hand prints just overlapping on those bells, but it certainly could have been something else. It definitely was not a matter of them being very tarnished.

Elke asked how we ended up getting the bells clean. Based on what my friend Jim had done with the 3 bells he borrowed, we used the following protocol on the entire set. The bells were completely disassembled. We polished the tang, followed by the inside of each bell. Once reassembled, we did the outside casting. As stated earlier, I was willing to go this route since this was going to be my set of bells.

1) BellZest was applied to each surface, wiped down & then had to apply a second coat.

2) Then we used the rouge surface of the Shino polishing cloth and then wiped it down.

3) It usually took two applications of polishing cream to finish removing the prints. While I had used Blue Magic on a couple of the bells I tried to clean up last summer, Jim had better luck using some old Malmark polish that he had. So I am not sure if we had gone with the Blue Magic if it would have done the job that the Malmark brand did. Unfortunately, Malmark does not sell the old stuff any longer.

Rebecca

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[Elke White]

Hi Rebecca, can you share with us how you polished the inside of the castings and with what product?  Thanks!

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[Rebecca Wingler]

We used the same procedure inside the bells as the outside casting. Normal recommendations weren't removing the prints from the inside.

Rebecca

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[Elke White]

Thanks!  They look great.

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[Rebecca Wingler]

Thank you! I wasn't sure they would ever look this good. ;-)

Rebecca

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