Bell foundry / Innsbruck / since 1782

# One pour.Three hundred years.

Cast in loam, broken out of its own mould, and tuned by taking metal away until all five partials agree.

How a bell is made
The hall, moulds set into the floor. Nine of them, all different.

## Eight bells

The peal at Wilten, drawn to diameter. Three of them are ours from 1782 and two are replacements for metal taken in 1943.

1. C

   1960 mm
   4 780 kg
   1782

   01

2. E♭

   1650 mm
   2 890 kg
   1782

   02

3. F

   1480 mm
   2 060 kg
   1911

   03

4. G

   1310 mm
   1 470 kg
   1782

   04

5. A♭

   1230 mm
   1 180 kg
   1948

   05

6. B♭

   1100 mm
   870 kg
   1948

   06

7. C

   980 mm
   610 kg
   2004

   07

8. E♭

   830 mm
   380 kg
   2004

   08

A bell is the only instrument that is finished by destroying part of it. You cast it deliberately too sharp, then cut metal out of the inside until five separate notes inside one lump of bronze fall into tune with each other.

Glockenhof has cast on the Höttinger Au since 1782, in loam, by the same method, with fourteen people and one crane that predates all of them.

We are not the cheapest way to get a bell and we have never pretended to be. What we sell is a casting that will still be in tune when everybody involved in ordering it is dead.

## Five operations

Forty days of mould-making for one hour of pouring, and then eleven days of cutting it back.

1. 01

   ### Strickle the loam

   The mould is swept, not carved: a shaped board turned on a spindle takes the profile out of wet loam 9 days
2. 02

   ### Build the false bell

   A clay bell is built on the core, dressed with tallow, and the cope is built over it 14 days
3. 03

   ### Bake and lift

   Fired for four days, the cope lifted, the false bell broken out, the void left is the bell 6 days
4. 04

   ### Pour

   Seventy-eight parts copper, twenty-two tin, at 1 150 °C, into a mould buried to the neck in sand 1 hour
5. 05

   ### Tune

   Mounted mouth-up and cut from the inside until all five partials fall where they should 11 days

1 150 °C. The mould is buried to the neck in sand for this.
Mouth-up on the lathe. Everything from here is subtraction.

## Three things that do not change

Two of them are physics. The third is a drawing in a locked cupboard.

I

### One pour, one bell

Nothing is cast twice from a mould. The loam is broken to get the bell out, which means every bell we have ever made had a mould made for it alone and no other.

II

### Tuned by removing

A bell can only be made flatter. Every cut on the lathe is final, so the casting is deliberately sharp and the last eleven days are spent taking metal away from the inside.

III

### The profile is not for sale

Our strickle boards are cut from a drawing revised eleven times since 1782 and never published. They are the only thing in the building that is locked away.

## Cast here

Recent work. A recast keeps the old bell’s metal and, where we can read it, its inscription.

1. 2026 Stiftskirche Wilten Innsbruck 1 470 kg G, four bells
2. 2025 Pfarrkirche Sölden Ötztal 610 kg C, recast of 1734
3. 2025 Dom zu Brixen Brixen 2 890 kg E♭, replacing 1943 loss
4. 2024 Klosterkirche Stams Stams 380 kg E♭, sanctus
5. 2024 Rathausturm Hall in Tirol 870 kg B♭, hour bell
6. 2023 Kapelle St. Magdalena Gschnitz 210 kg F, single
7. 2023 Pfarrkirche Zirl Zirl 4 780 kg C, the largest since 1911
8. 2022 Basilika Absam Absam 1 180 kg A♭, third of five
9. 2021 Friedhofskapelle Telfs 96 kg A, hand bell
10. 2019 Universitätskirche Innsbruck 2 060 kg F, recast of 1911

> A bell out of tune with itself is not a bad bell. It is a very heavy mistake nobody can move.

> Anneliese Ruetz, tuning

## The five partials

What is cut, where, and how close it has to land. Every bell leaves with its own measured sheet.

1. Hum One octave below−1 200 cents Cut at the lip
2. Prime The nominal itself 0 cents Cut at the waist
3. Tierce A minor third above+300 cents Cut above the waist
4. Quint A fifth above+700 cents Cut at the shoulder
5. Nominal One octave above+1 200 cents Cut at the soundbow
6. Superquint A twelfth above+1 900 cents Rarely touched
7. Octave nominal Two octaves above+2 400 cents Never touched
8. Tolerance On every partial± 2 cents Measured, not judged
9. Alloy Copper to tin 78 : 22 Assayed each melt
10. Temperature At the pour 1 150 °C Optical pyrometer

## Coming to a pour

Foundry
  Höttinger Au 41, 6020 Innsbruck. Pours are announced a week ahead.
Watching
  Anyone may watch a pour from the gantry. Children over eight, closed shoes.
Lead time
  Fourteen to twenty months. The mould alone is a month of it.
Recasting
  We will recast a cracked bell using its own metal, and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth it.

Commissions, recasts, tuning reports

## Stand at the edge of a pour

Höttinger Au 41, 6020 Innsbruck. Twelve people, closed shoes, and an hour of nothing happening before the ninety seconds that matter. The office answers between eight and four, and nobody answers on the morning of a pour.