Bell Installation

On October 23-25, the Bells were re-installed into the tower of Grace Episcopal Church.  Our Bell contractor, Chimemaster of Ohio, installed a new bell frame, the 8 old Blake Brothers Bells, and the one newly recast bell (see previous bog post for the story of the recast bell).

The Medford Bell, once intended to be a fire bell for the City of Medford, is the largest of the 9 bells.  Here is it being raised into the tower...

Here is another movie of a bell being installed on the new frame...

Chimemaster Jeff Crook talks about the difference between the "old" and "new" bells

We are now waiting for electrical work to be completed, and then Chimmaster will return to finish the installation job.  We are currently on track to re-dedicate the bells on Sunday, November 18, 2012 after the 10:00AM service.

Tower work progressing...waiting for the bells!

Most of the exteriors work is complete on the bell tower now.  We are waiting for the bells to be delivered, and the new louvers to arrive from the manufacturer, for the louvers to go in.  The new bell platform in complete, along with the new ladder.  See below for a view...

The bells are set to arrive this week, with the new bell frame.  The newly re-cast bell has been delivered from Holland to our bell company.  Take a look at the new steel frame and the re-cast bell below.

The new steel bell frame at the bell company, before it is galvanized.

Re-cast Bell delivered to our bell company

The bells are set to arrive, and be re-installed this week.  We plan on spending a few weeks figuring out how to use them, before our big Bell re-dedication on Sunday, November 18.  November 18 will be the first Sunday we ring the bells (though there may be some seek-peak times during the week).

Grace Church Blesses New Boiler!

On Sunday, September 9, 2012, the Rt. Rev. Gayle Elizabeth Harris, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts blessed Grace Episcopal Church's new boiler during her official visitation to the parish.  "Almighty God, your Holy Spirit equips the church with a rich variety of gifts to accomplish your will and mission in the world. Today we celebrate the most practical of gifts, the gift of boilers to warm our church, that it may serve as the gathering and meeting place for our congregation and the community," she prayed as she blessed the boiler.

The $100,000 project completed replaces the church's old failing oil system with high efficiency gas condensing boilers. This boiler project will both save the church money on energy costs, and dramatically reduce the building's carbon footprint. MedfordWellington Service, of Medford, installed the new boiler. This boiler replacement is part of Grace Episcopal Church's historical restoration and building greening project funded by the church's 2011 Capital Campaign.

Trip to the Top

On Thursday, August 30th, our contractor Jay Murray led a tour to the top of our Bell Tower for Wes Foote, Jr, the Reverend Noah Evans, Jonathan Hunt, Allison Andrews and Eva Englert.  Jonathan took the above video, and see below for our photo slideshow.

MEANWHILE, IN THE NETHERLANDS...From Minister of Music Ruth Roper

MEANWHILE, IN THE NETHERLANDS...

Two weeks ago Noah shared with me the story of the damaged bell and its pending re-casting; he was curious what I thought, both as a history buff, and as Grace's musician, who will be playing these bells sometime soon. While it's disappointing not to have all of the bells conserved in their pristine original form, I actually find it kind of cool that this one bell is having this incredible adventure. From Medford, to the U.S. heartland... then off to Asten, half a world away in the Netherlands, to the premiere bell foundry in the world... for melt-down, and like the phoenix, to rise from the ashes into a digitally-exact replica. Wow! And isn't our faith a lot about renewal and rebirth?

"I almost wish one of us could fly over there to witness it," Noah mused. Well, as it happens, my niece Joanna was in fact going to be in the Netherlands that very week! So, in a flurry of e-mails, I arranged to have her make the 2-hour side trip to the Royal Eijsbouts Foundry (http://www.eijsbouts.com/), to witness the event on our behalf. She was to be met at the train by Joep, the Dutch artisan overseeing this project, and given a tour. Our bell was not scheduled for its recasting until after Joanna's visit, but on the day of her visit she would be able to see its wax cast, and was invited to observe a bell for the Notre Dame in Paris being poured. Joanna, herself an artist who works with molten glass, not to mention always up for an offbeat adventure, was thrilled for the opportunity. After the foundry visit, she planned a visit to the associated "Klok & Peel" ("Clock & Bell") museum in Asten. (http://www.museumasten.nl/) I got so jazzed up reading these materials that I actually considered flying over there myself! (Curious? Read this: http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=54970#.UEgLRiLduSp)

I've been hoping to hear more from her about how the visit went -- so far I've just heard that it was "awesome!!" and received this picture of her next to a bell twice her size. (Her time in Holland was bnef, as she was en route to Israel to begin a program there.) Hopefully we'll hear more from her about her day with our phoenix-bell, so watch for future posts.

The scaffolding reaches the top!

This week the scaffolding has reached the top of the Grace Episcopal Church Bell tower. It is quite and impressive site to the the work climb to the top of the tower.



Our masons are almost done with the front vestibule of the church, when they are done, They will start work on the interior of the bell tower until the scaffolding is ready for them to begin work on the exterior of the tower. The High Street door of the church may be closed for a couple of weeks.




The Bell company sent the bell to the foundry in the Netherlands to have it repaired (see the last blog post for the story of the cracked bell). The foundry (Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry) can't fix it, but will take a mold of our old bell and cast one that is identical. They will also use digital technology to shape the new bell's sound to exactly replicate the old bell's sound. They plan to take our old bell and melt it down and use the same bronze to fabricate the new one. All of this is at no additional cost to us. There will be both material and metaphysical links between the old and new bell!

Right now the bells are scheduled to come back the begging of October, and we hope to have the entire project completed by early November. The work seems to be on schedule at this time.

Phase II Tower Work Begins

The Phase II Restoration work on the Grace Church bell tower has begun!  We anticipate that this work on the Bell Tower and the High Street foyer will continue until the first week in November.

Our General Contractor, Murray Brothers has demolished and removed the internal first floor of the bell tower.

And the second floor platform (which will not be replaced).

The floor was then filled, and will have new concrete slab added later.

Our masons are working to match the mortar color and consistency with the building -- 

You can follow our masonry subcontractors perspective on this project on their own blog found here. 

We also have learned, unfortunately, that one of our bells developed a hairline crack as the bell contractors were working on it.  The bell is being shipped to the foundry in the Netherlands in order to be repaired.  You can see the crack in the photo below radiating down from one on the bolt holes.  We are told that the crack does not effect the part of the bell that produces sound, and will be able to be fully repaired.