DIRECTIONS: Get a fork from the drawer for the second paragraph.
Scissors only, with a grown-up in the room. If a step seems to want a knife, snip or fold instead.
What you need: cutlery · jar lids · bottle tops · string · a stick · card · scissors · a ruler. Old cutlery, not the good set.
Two spots on a hanging bar hold still while it rings. The string must go through one. Hold a fork by the end and tap: dull. Pinch it a fifth of the way down: it rings.
Shop chimes are drilled 22.4% in from the end. Anywhere else, the knot grips
moving metal and kills the ring.
Pinch the fork at five different places and tap it each time. Which pinch rang longest, and how far down was it? Measure it, then work out what fraction of the whole fork that is.
What Rings, and What Does Not
Making · Projects · Page 2 of 7
DIRECTIONS: Dangle each on a string loop, tap it, and count "one elephant, two elephant" until it stops.
Hold it by the string. A finger on it stops it.
What
Guess: how long will it ring?
How long it actually rang
In the chime?
a fork
a big spoon
a teaspoon
a metal jar lid
a bottle top
a wooden spoon
a plastic lid
a coin
Metal rings; wood thumps. Bending rubs a material against itself and turns movement into heat. Metal loses little; wood and plastic lose it at once. A crack stops the ring dead: that is how bells and train wheels are tested.
Something rang for much longer or much shorter than you guessed. Which was it, and what had you assumed about it?
Where to Tie It
Making · Projects · Page 3 of 7
DIRECTIONS: Measure it, look it up, and mark it. Then check by ear.
If it is this long
Tie it this far from the end
4 in
7/8 in
5 in
1 1/8 in
6 in
1 3/8 in
7 in
1 9/16 in
8 in
1 13/16 in
9 in
2 in
10 in
2 1/4 in
12 in
2 11/16 in
The table works for straight, even bars: 22.4% of the length. A fork is not even, so find its spot by ear: 1. Pinch near one end and tap. 2. Move a finger-width along and tap again. 3. Stop where it rings longest, and tie it there.
A real 7 inches. Lay the fork on it.
Your four, measured both ways
What it is
How long
Table says tie at
Your ear says tie at
Which rang better?
Fill in both columns. The table is for straight bars; on a fork, trust your ear.
It Needs a Sail
Making · Projects · Page 4 of 7
DIRECTIONS: Cut one out: the wind catcher is what makes the chime play.
The flat thing hanging off the bottom of every wind chime is not decoration.
It is the engine.
The clapper in the middle is heavy, and a breeze cannot shift it. So the sail hangs below on a
longer string, where it has room to swing and a broad face for the wind to push on — and it
drags the clapper into the tubes. Leave the sail off and your chime hangs silent on a day
when the one three gardens away is going.
No sail. The wind goes past a thin clapper and nothing happens.
With a sail. Same breeze, same chime.
At least three inches across. The three on the next page are that size.
Three Sails, at the Size That Works
Making · Projects · Page 5 of 7
DIRECTIONS: Glue this page onto card (not paper), cut one out, and punch the small circle.
the discThe plain one, and the one that works best. Every shop chime uses it.
the leafTurns edge-on in a strong wind, so it is quieter in a gale. Some people want that.
the fishThe tail makes it spin as well as swing, which hits the tubes twice as often.
Building It, and the Rule That Is Not What You Expect
Making · Projects · Page 6 of 7
DIRECTIONS: Hang the longest first, then work round. Tie knots loosely at first.
Step
How
Why
1. The top
A stick, or a metal jar lid with holes punched round the edge.
It has to be stiff. A floppy top absorbs the ring, same as a bad knot.
2. Hang them in a ring
All the same distance from the middle, all hanging to the same height at the top.
The clapper has to be able to reach every one of them. Miss one and it never plays.
3. The clapper
Something wooden, hanging in the middle, at the height of the middle of the tubes.
Wood on metal is a note. Metal on metal is a clank. And the middle of the tube is where it moves most.
4. The sail
Below the clapper, on a longer string.
Page 4. It is the engine.
5. Order them
Longest to shortest, going round.
The wind plays them in the order you hang them, so hanging them in order means it plays a tune rather than a jumble.
Halving a string doubles the pitch. Halving a bar makes it four times higher: two octaves. So one short tube pings out above the rest. Try a long fork beside a teaspoon.
Where to Hang It
Making · Projects · Page 7 of 7
DIRECTIONS: After a week outside.
Where: a little wind, not outside a bedroom window. Under a porch or by a door.
Where you tried it
Did it play?
Too much, too little, or right?
Move the string on one of the tubes to a wrong place on purpose, and listen. Describe the difference in a way that would convince somebody who has not heard it.
Which of your things ended up in the chime and which got left out, and why? The prettiest is almost never the best ringer.
You learned that half a string is one octave up and half a bar is two. Say, in your own words, what somebody would get wrong if they only knew the string rule.