Their waiter, Ronnie Rushmore, had taken their orders earlier, and now was serving up desert. His feet hurt and he wanted to finish up and go home, but the diners lingered on. He groaned as a new topic came up in the conversation, and he knew that more coffee and tea would soon be ordered.

"It didn't have a discernible hole anywhere, and my safety training, as Monnie points out, is that without a vent hole, things go boom. It's one of those things I've never proven to myself, trying to benefit from the experience of others... Anyway, the "shank" (between the ends) wasn't a straight tube, but was nicely formed with a graceful bowing out in the middle, and the ends were spherical. I also couldn't detect a seam anywhere. It was too light to be lathe turned, although that would have been the easiest way I could think of to create that form. Any ideas?"

Good grief, thought the waiter, is this something that's going to drag on and on? Under his breath he kept repeating to himself....oh hurry up, hurry up, let's get this over with already. My dogs are killin' me.

JOHN: "I think that if you were to open one of the bells up, you would find a flat (?) coil of wire with one end attached to the bell body the other end free. There would also be some sort of material to act as a "clapper" to hit the coil and make it ring (metal shot, small stones, or, if one were very rich, maybe even diamonds (;-). (It is getting too late to be doing this!!!!)"

You got that right, buster, intones Ronnie to himself. Keep this up and it's going to be too late to do anything. Are we done yet?

JOHN: "Old clocks have chimes made in this coiled manner and they sound very similar to the bells only lower in tone. All of the clock coils that I have seen are attached/suspended from the outside of the coil end. Wire diameter and length are important for tone and pitch. I also have a suspicion that a "hardened" wire would make a much better tone than a soft wire. I have never taken one of these apart, and I have never made one, but for all of the hours I have thought about it, I probably could have made hundreds of them.... As to there being no holes, what about doing the required soldering with the vent hole, and then as the last "joint" close the hole? There should be no danger of a blow up as the air has been heated making the other solder joints. Good joinery would make the required joints nearly invisible, especially after a bit of judicious cleaning, sanding and polishing.

"I must repeat, --- I have never tried this. It is an 'I want to do in the future' project, but I feel I am on the right track. Hope this helps or at least gives you some ideas for direction.

"Just ask Jim, about closing the holes in metal beads. This wire could possibly be used to suspend the chime coil, suspending it from the center of the wind??? Solder the wire chime coil assembly into one end of the ball unit before assembling the ball unit, then solder the ball hemispheres and finally solder the remaining wire filled vent hole and wa la. If it is all to go into the rattle, solder the chime units into each end but be sure to have a vent hole somewhere on the rattle body and close it up last. Another thought.... will a better sound be generated with the chime coil suspended on a wire that goes to both sides of the sphere, or would it be better sounding if the suspending wire was attached to only one side of the sphere? What do you think Jim?"

Oh great, this Jim fellow here looks like a talker, mumbled Ronnie as he summarily swipes the spilt tea off the edge of the table, upsetting Monnies cocoa mocha. "Hey watchit ya big goon" yelled Monnie, "ya damned near ruined my suit, you clumsy dolf." Yeah and you're ruining my day missie, why don'tcha leave if you don't like it here, snarled the waiter under his breath.

JIM: "I have been making some hollow spheres out of mokume hemispheres. I have not had any problems with doing this as a two-step process. I drill a small hole in the top of the hemispheres and then solder them together. After pickling, cleaning and drying I place a wire the same size as the drill I used to make the holes, through both of the holes I then flux and slowly heat the assembly and solder the wire ends to the sphere.

"After pickling and cleaning, I file the wire ends flush with the surface of the sphere. This allows me to check the integrity of the main seam of the hemispheres for complete solder flow and fix it by re-soldering before sealing the closed volume. The wires are such a small joint that they are very easy to get a good seal on. This might not be necessary on sterling but when using copper, brass and silver mokume it is harder to get a good clean solder joint."

Finally the chairs were scraped back, and everyone got up to leave. Just outside the door, John happened to turn around and noticed Ronnie the waiter giving them the finger and yelling something about a paltry tip or some such thing. "Whatever got under his skin?" he asked.

"Aw, you know how it is with all these New York waiters," sneered Monnie. "They all think they're prima donas."

Contributors:

David Sabaste - davidse@msn.com
John Dach - mice@pacific.net
James Binnion - jbin@well.com