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Gasps of “wow” travelled through the Young Public School students gathered for Monday’s Education Week assembly as a cover was lifted from a bell many had only ever known as a painted fixture on the school grounds.
After decades beneath layers of green and red paint, the school’s 152-year-old brass bell shone once again.
When Josh attended Young Public School, he remembered the bell as something he and his classmates occasionally could not resist sneaking over to ring as they passed.
He had no idea it was made of brass or of it's long history at the school.
Nor could he have known that years later he would be asked to restore it through his family’s local business, Integrity Metal Solutions.
Josh and his father, Bill Rendell, organised the removal of the bell from its single post at the school and took it back to their workshop.
“It was painted green,” Josh said.
“It had, I think, about seven coats of paint on it. Most of it was green, but there was a layer of red in there as well.
“I actually didn’t realise it was a brass bell.”
“Once we got it here, I scraped some of the paint layers off, and that’s when I discovered it was brass,” he said.
“It was very much, ‘Oh, well, this is a piece of history.’
“You never see these brass bells anywhere anymore,” Josh said.
Young Public School administrative manager Jane Caldow said the school had become concerned that the chipped paint could eventually contribute to deterioration of the brass.
The school approached Bill to ask whether Integrity Metal Solutions could help, and he handed the project to Josh knowing his connection as a former student.
Integrity Metal Solutions donated the restoration work, including the labour and materials required to clean the bell and construct its new frame.
Instead of sandblasting the bell, which could have worn away the softer brass, Josh used strong paint stripper and a pressure washer to gradually lift the layers.
The process had to be repeated three or four times before the remaining paint could be carefully worked out of grooves and harder-to-reach sections by hand.
“With steel, you can shot blast or sandblast it, but if you did that on brass, it would wear so much away that you would ruin it,” he said.
“I had to hand-work it to get it down to the brass layer and then use really fine-grit sanding wheels to try to bring out a polish.”
The stripping, sanding and polishing took about three full days.
As the layers disappeared, the bell’s original casting details emerged, including the words “Russell, Sydney Foundry”, hidden beneath decades of paint.
At the school, it had been hanging from a single post, with students pulling a chain attached to the clapper.
However, after looking through photographs of old bells and researching how they had traditionally been mounted, Josh discovered this bell had been designed to swing within a frame.
Rather than simply moving the clapper, the entire bell was intended to move, producing a fuller and more resonant sound.
Josh spent about a day and a half designing and fabricating a new frame.
Timber was considered, but steel was chosen because the frame had to be secured to a sandstone block. A timber structure would have needed to be much larger, while steel provided the strength required in a more compact and durable design.
The 240-pound bell was presented to Young National School in 1874 by Mrs Watson as a parting gift from her husband, Thomas Watson, when he left the district to enter the ministry.
It was cast by PN Russell and Co in Sydney and followed the school from its early site near the present railway station to Campbell Street and later to the current Bruce Street grounds.
For generations, duty students rang it at breaks and home time.
That daily role ended in 2010 when an electronic system was installed.
Each year, Year 6 students line up to ring the bell as they leave Young Public School for the final time.
The restored bell was unveiled on Monday by former students Edwina Mason and Jamie Watson, descendants of the family who donated it.
Edwina gave those gathered a brief account of the bell’s history before Jamie rang it, with his sister standing nearby as its deep, resonant sound carried across the school grounds.
The moment drew audible admiration from those gathered, along with more than one suggestion that perhaps the old bell should return to daily duty.
For Josh, it had been a project unlike anything he had worked on before.
“It’s just a really cool project,” he said.
“It’s something unique that I haven’t really worked on before.
“I’m definitely happy with how it has come up.”
More than 150 years after one local family donated the bell, another has donated its skills and time to ensure it could continue ringing for generations to come.
Its daily duties may have passed to technology, but its sound will continue to mark the final departure of each Year 6 class.