Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-09-26 14:39
Some postulations in my ingnorance:
1. Bell rings, I believe, are normally installed by shringing a ring around the timber with a powerful press. This would likely leave sever marks on silver plating, which is much softer than the usual bse metal, cupro-nickel. So how are they installed with no plating damage?
Could they be bufffed and plated AFTER installation? If so it would not be a thorough (thick) 'immersion' plating because the chemicals would be rough on timber. Superficial 'brush' plating could be emplyed with care, and this would probably quickly wear through.
This problem does not apply to the tenon socket rings which are pressed on from the end of the timber, and not shrunk on.
...So I wonder just how many of these corroding bell rings are actually silver plated. They may be well-buffed, unplated cupronickel, which appears like silver until it tarnishes. (Ever seen the unplated line where the ring was soldered together?) Silver polish hardly touches cupronickel. Brasso does.
...Or are they made from sterling silver so that plating is not needed? If so perhaps we should be aware that traces of certain metals (rhodium & palladium?) are sometimes alloyed with the silver in silver plating - to reduce the speed of tarnishing. It is unlikely that a solid silver bell ring would be of this alloy, so this may explain it tarnishing faster.
2. There are many sources of sulphur in the environment, and sulphur compounds are the main culprets in tarnishing silver. One of the environmental sources of sulphur is wool (and wool felt, incidentally - I wonder if this causes the pitting on some flutes where the felt contacts the body!!). Could the excessive tarnish of bells - for some people only - be as a result of the player resting the end of the bell on wool trousers or skirt during bars rest, etc.
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