Renovations

Petit & Fritsen is specialized in doing renovations of carillons, tower clocks and church bells. In close cooperation with the customer a thorough survey is done to recommend several possibilities. This needs determination of the old status and a recommendation is adapted to the existing technique. Through the centuries many changes often have been made. This makes it difficult to determine how the original setup had been. The tower clocks often are electrified and synchronized for accurate time and automatic change from summer to winter time. In event the clock dials are deteriorated due to weather conditions, they will then be gold leafed again. A new gold leafed tower clock does make the tower look beautiful again and thus continues to be a prominent structure of local church or city.

Seven other groupings of clock dials: A B C D E F G

Upon occasion not only a restoration is requested, but also an expansion. A typical example is seen at the Buurtower in Utrecht where a new bell needed to be added to existing bells. This required a special bell profile that had to be matched with the existing (Tolhuys) bells. The new added bell is cast exactly to precise tone, because tuning after its casting was not allowed by the customer. Ultimately the bell frame, yoke and clapper were made exactly to fit and match the existing bells using oak wood and wrought iron.