Expert: William J Perkins - 6/12/2007

Question
Hello William..could you please tell me what is the correct striking point on a tubular  bell long case.Should the hammer strike near the upper edge or slightly below the upper edge of the tube.  

Answer
Whenever I was called upon to rehang a set of tubular chimes I followed this routine. After about 1970 I would install new suspension cords fabricated from braided squid line, prior to 1970 I used chrome leather lacing.  Suspend one of the tubes from a hanger and strike it with a gong hammer until I found the spot that provided the best resonance.  I would mark that spot with a sharp pointed kato pen.  I would then hang that tube on to its rack in a position where the clocks hammer for that tube would strike the dot direct center.  Then I would hang all the rest of the tubes in a manner that brought all the tube tops exactly level to the marked tube.  Since a set of tubes are tuned at the factory that should take care of the matter.  Sometimes I would run across a set of tube that were not factory tuned.  When that occurred I would go through the procedure described for the first tube above, thereby locating the sweet spot of all the tubes, then hanging them so that the clocks hammers struck the marks dead center