Tradition from the Volcanic Eifel

Firmly walled in the earth stands the mold, baked from clay...

You hear them several times every day all over the world. Sometimes more, sometimes less loud and many of them come from the beautiful Volcanic Eifel - from Brockscheid.

What am I talking about? About church tower bells, of course!

Once again on the road, this time I went to the Mark bell foundry in Brockscheid.

As I mentioned earlier, you hear them chime several times every day, the church tower bells, for many a blessing, for many a curse. One has already become so accustomed to their sound and yet, as I had to discover, one knows so little about them. About their manufacture, for example, and about the origin of their unique sound.

Speaking of sound: Did you know that the sound of a bell is calculated? On the basis of the oscillation number of the tones, the bell foundry master, in Brockscheid it is the bell foundry master, calculates the later diameter of the bell. How exactly the calculation is of course (in the Mark family since 1620) bell foundry master secret, there was unfortunately no exception made with me.

These calculations are transferred to a beech board, which is used as a template for the three parts of the bell mold to be made. The bell core, the false bell and the mantle. All three parts are made of layers of clay, which are smoothed with the template.

"On the tours, no one wants to believe us that the clay is mixed with horse manure and cattle hair as a binder until we're standing in front of the manure pile in the workshop."

After removing the false bell, the mold for the bell casting is completed after about 2 months.

The process continues as in Friedrich Schiller's "The Song of the Bell": "Firmly walled in the earth stands the mold, fired from clay..." . When this is done, the bell can be cast and must then harden for up to three weeks, depending on its size.

After that, the bell has its tone. At least I always thought that the bell then has your one tone. The strike tone. But I was taught better. The bell has several tones, and if you also, like me after this wonderful tour, want to hear the bells ring completely different, I recommend a visit to the bell foundry Mark, because this visit makes the everyday bell ringing a small miracle of craftsmanship.

Author: L. Rinneburger