ANOTHER PERCUSSION RESTORATION PROJECT: LP HANDHELD BELLTREE

Here is another Latin Percussion Handheld Belltree that I recently acquired.  This instrument, as is obvious right off the bat, has a few issues.  The first, of course, is that it has a lovely patina, which means it is terribly dirty and needs a thorough cleaning.  I might even label it "completely filthy."  That's my professional opinion.  I'm not dealing in antiques here.

Also, it looks like the previous owner took this belltree apart and haphazardly reassembled it, because many of the bells are out of order, or rather out of sequence, and not stacked neatly from smallest to largest.  In addition the bells wobble quite a bit and make contact with each other when the instrument is moved, which means the tree is not tight and adequately spaced.  The bells of a properly assembled belltree should not do this.

When I got everything apart and laid out, I discovered why the bells were arranged in such an odd fashion.  After all, LP stamps numbers inside most of the bells so that putting them in order is easy.  The previous owner had used a marker to denote what "note" each individual bell made, such as F#, G or A.  Then he had stacked the bells accordingly, so that the bells would play from lower to higher pitch.

This is something that will drive you crazy if you don't understand the nature of bell trees: the sounds of the individual bells never correspond perfectly with their size, so that some larger bells actually ring higher than smaller bells, and vice versa.  The traditional "bell tree" instrument is intended to produce a single sound effect, a quick swish of rapidly-cascading bell tings in no particular order, possibly transcribed as "SCHWING!!"  The bell tree is not supposed to be a "tuned" instrument with bells that produce formal notes in a proper order.  This is not a glockenspiel or a "handbell bell tree."  This is a collection of inexpensive brass bells lined up and struck in quick succession.

This is the same instrument after I have cleaned it up and reworked it.  The bells have been polished and put back into the correct order, but I have also made some more important structural improvements that make the instrument hold together and play better.  These I will briefly mention in quick order.

Between the wooden handle and the bottom-most bell is a metal tube (or spacer) that the stack of bells rests on, and in this case this spacer was quite weathered and discolored.  Plus it was too short.  So I replaced it with a new, shiny, stainless steel tube that is a little longer so that the bells are a more comfortable distance from the handle and you don't whack your hand with the brass-tipped mallet used to play this instrument.

The plastic tube that goes over the metal stem of the instrument to eliminate its contact with the bells was also replaced because it was very yellowed and deteriorated.  All of the aged, gunky rubber washers between the bells were replaced with new felt ones.

And in the end, as evidenced by this photo to the right, the bells stacked up beautifully and came to the top of the rod where the threading begins, so that the wingnut tightens securely down on the uppermost bell and holds everything together snugly.  In the "before" photo you can see that this was not the case beforehand, so that the stack was loose and wobbly.

Another Percussion Restoration Project executed successfully.