Casting Bells

by | Jun 8, 2017 | 0 comments

This video has nothing to do with woodworking and it is in German, yet it is one of the most memorable craft videos I have ever watched.

Casting giant church bells. It starts with hand building 8′ tall molds made of brick and layers of mortar, fiber and metal.  Really there’s two molds for each bell, a positive mold and a negative mold.  The molds are only used once.  Molds for a dozen bells are constructed in the bottom of a  huge pit in the shop floor, then the pit is filled with sand. 

If you are too impatient to watch the whole 30 minute episode, skip to minute 18 for the thrills. Imagine the excitement of steam bending a chair back, then imagine you’ve worked weeks on that back and it’s worth a rich man’s wage. The room looks like a cross between Dante’s Inferno and an active volcano when they pour.  Incredible. 

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