Giant Newport bell will break record, not windows

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Wednesday, December 9, 1998

BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer

St. Francis De Sales Church worker John Harper shows how big the nation's largest swinging bell is. The one for Newport will be twice as big. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

This is a tale of two bells.

One rang once and wreaked havoc on the surrounding neighborhood. The other will ring nine months from now and won't wreak havoc, even though it will be twice the size of its now-silent sister.

How's that? Physics (but more on that later).

Bell No. 1 is Big Joe, the nation's largest swinging bell. Weighing in at 17.5 tons, it hangs in the steeple of East Walnut Hills' St. Francis De Sales Church.

When Big Joe rang on Jan. 19, 1896, it shattered windows in surrounding buildings. The pastor ordered it silenced, says the Rev. Ed Jach of St. Francis De Sales. Its 625-pound clapper now is on display at the Verdin Co.'s bell and clock museum in Pendleton.

Bell No. 2 will be a hefty 33 tons after it's cast Friday in Nantes, France. It's Newport's World Peace Bell, soon to be the world's largest swinging bell. It will be rung Sept. 22 and often thereafter, says Cynthia Goodman, spokeswoman for Millennium Monument Co., which commissioned the bell for Newport's Millennium Tower complex. Time to price replacement windows? Nope, says Robert Verdin, service manager of Verdin Bell Co., maker of the Peace Bell.

"It's twice as big, and may be twice as loud, but it won't break windows," he says.

Oh?

"The larger the bell, the deeper the tone," he explains. "A shrill bell is more likely to shatter a window."

But more than that, and here comes the physics: "Peace is so large, and so slow moving, that the shock waves coming off will be very far apart. That means by the time one wave hits a window, the previous wave will have dissipated.

"If that story about Big Joe is true, and I'm not sure it is, it broke windows because it rang faster, meaning shock waves kept hammering and hammering in multiple waves."

Mr. Verdin doesn't know yet how many gongs per minute the Peace Bell will sound, nor what note it will voice. In the old days, bells were mostly D-sharp; today they vary.

"We just cast them and let the note form on its own," Mr. Verdin says.