#bell-making

Thomas carefully climbs the steps next to the furnace. The molten metal is bubbling at 1500◦ C. The white-haired man stretches out his hand, feeling the heat. “It’s low; it needs more.” His son and his nephew respond immediately, running to add more metal to the pot before stepping away.

The atmosphere is stiflingly hot. Through a small widow, we can see the metal fighting the fire, and succumbing slowly to its power. At the end of the process, a ton of copper and tin has been transformed into a thick orange-red liquid.

The molten metal which will be poured carefully into molds is the raw material for the Galanopoulos brothers’ famous bells. From their workshop in Paramythia in Thesprotia, their bells, large and small, have traveled to the far corners of the earth: Greece, Germany, Kenya, Tanzania, Australia and the United States. They make more than a thousand bells a year.

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The dirty secret behind Russian bell-making

The trick to making a perfect bell is in the ingredients, such as clay, horse manure and cow hair. However, one has to know the proportions, which bell-makers will not disclose to a stranger at any cost.

At more than a thousand degrees centigrade it is hard to imagine how molten metal will transform into an exquisite and world-class instrument. Each has an individual shape, and for each new bell, the whole process starts from scratch.

What makes them so special is the voice – unique for each and every bell.

“We can influence the main tone, but there are different timbres that make it sound special,” says Nikolay Shuvalov.

“I don’t even know what influences this. Perhaps it’s the mood of the molder and the caster that matter. I also noticed that humidity, and even the moon phase affect the sound,” says Nikolay, explaining the nuances of his art.

It is that special sound that has made Nikolay Shuvalov's small bell foundry in the Yaroslavl region in Central Russia a lucrative operation. Originally, he cast small bells in his backyard. Nikolay says they sounded like old buckets, but luckily his early failures did not discourage him.

“It was my curiosity, in addition to my ear for music, which is absolutely indispensable, and some education, including in physics, chemistry, theory of strength of materials, mathematics and even, to a certain extent, economics.”

It is not all down to science, however. In order to truly perfect the process, Nikolay and his team employ some old world technology that may be considered a bit strange by modern standards.

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