Marlborough's simple system
Why persist in the tedium of crawling around under the bells and fiddling with wing nuts etc (how many times are they dropped and lost?) to wedge silencing boards across the mouth of the bells, each time you silence or unsilence the bells?
Try the easy option….
Call in on your local cycle shop and convince them that rather they pay their Council the commercial waste disposal fee, you would be happy to take off their hands 12 or 16 (two for each bell) old punctured 26” (or any others they may have) bicycle inner tubes. Punctures not a problem, but perhaps not if split.
If you can, hacksaw off the metal valve tube as close to its base as possible, as that reduces the risk of very slight injury when fitting (more annoying, than actual injury), but no worry if they are left protruding.
Using a single length of string (3m should be sufficient for most towers) and a marker pen, form a loop at one end of the string, large enough to fit over the crown nut. Up in the bell chamber, hook over the crown nut and drape the cord down one side of each bell in turn, pull it taught, and pass it under the bell, with one hand pinching the chord with thumb and finger when you get to the clapper flight, and mark that length (C2C).
After all bells, you should have the one string with six or eight markings representing the distance from crown nut, down to the bell rim and out to the middle where the clapper hangs for each bell.
Assembly
At St Mary’s Marlborough, we found the ideal tension length to be approximately 400mm, so in turn for each bell, lay out its proposed tubes alongside the string, and where the distance between the respective C2C mark and the length of the tubes exceeds 400mm, ‘supplement’ the length of both tubes by loops of cord (washing line or sash cord would be suitable) keeping the total tube and cord ‘short’ by approximately the 400mm. There is a balance to be stuck between too thin a cord ‘cutting into’ your hands when you lift them off the bell, or too thick for the two loops to ‘cross over’ the crown nut. Equally there is a balance between tensioning too much so that there is absolutely no chance of the clapper swaying, but then making it too difficult to pull the clapper back and get the second tube round the clapper flight without possibly trapping your fingers when you do so.
With lighter bells, where the C2C measurement is not that much greater than the cycle tubes, shorten the tubes by figure of eight knots, so increasing the tension when fitted. We found that because of the reduced weight, and momentum, of the clappers, the tension length difference could be reduced from the 400mm, but by trial and error this can be set up for each tower.
With cord loops added, or tubes ‘knotted’, they are then specific to each bell, and we found it best to keep them in an old shopping carrier bag under the individual bells.
Use
Installation is simply looping the tubes, or its attached cord, one each side of the bell over the crown nut and down past the rim of the bell. From either side of the bell, depending on which is easiest to access, reach under the bell, pull the free hanging tube from the other side towards you and loop around the clapper, between its ball and flight. Pull the clapper slightly towards you and do likewise with the other tube hanging beside you. There is no need to ‘spread’ the tubes where they pass the rim, side-by-side works fine.
Adjust the clapper to near centre by adjusting the inner tube where it passes the rim of the bell. No need to be exact.
Removal
We find this easiest by holding both sides near the crown nut, lifting off the nut, and with your arms hanging down each side of the bell, shake the slack tubes till they fall off the clapper. Make sure they are clear of the clapper and slider, and put into their bags ready for next time.
Fitting these to the eight at Marlborough, after some practice of working out the easiest sequence of climbing through the bell frame, takes about 15mins total (2 people x 8 mins), and removal is even quicker!
