Punctuality will take on a new meaning this finals week as the chimes of Memorial Tower echo more boldly and precisely across campus with the installment of new speakers and the replacement of the mechanism that powers the four clock faces.
Michael Guillory, director of Facility Systems for the Office of Facility Services, said between the installment of new speakers and the repair to the clock movement, the clock repair was the most crucial.
“We were potentially about to lose the clock face and the clock movement,” Guillory said.
Jim Henry, Office of Facility Services maintenance manager, said the clock motor went out in February, but he was able to replace the piece and keep the clock going.
After that repair, there were no more spare parts and replacement of the clock movement was crucial.
“What is sad is that no one has kept a good history of what has gone on in the tower,” Guillory said. “For instance, the original chimes were pulled out in 1949, but we have no clue where they are.”
However, in 2007, Student Government commissioned the repair of the sound system for $29,000, putting a new digital recording system, called a carillon, in the tower.
With this renovation, the tower, which had not chimed regularly since 2003, was restored to its former glory.
“That brought back the sound of LSU to the tower,” Guillory said.
Guillory said the tower currently has a big digital recorder, loaded with more than 500 songs from a digital library along with a keyboard that can play music through the speakers.
While the eight speakers currently in the tower have a 300- to 8,000-hertz frequency range, Guillory said the new speaker system will have a 20- to 20,000-hertz range, allowing them to more robustly project the crisp bell-like sound throughout.
However, the University’s Memorial Bell Tower has never actually housed a bell, Guillory explained.
Instead, the ringing from the tower was produced by a set of Deagan Tower Chimes, also called vertical bells, and drawn from the finest quality of bell metal. They were installed in 1924 when the building was being constructed.
The set of 18 chimes also had an organ and keyboard that could be played by hand and would ring across campus. A similar electronic keyboard came with the new system installed in 2007.
Also with the new digital system, the company the system was purchased from, Chimemaster, recorded a set of Deagan chimes specifically for the University’s Memorial Tower.
Guillory said in 1949, when the Deagan chimes were replaced by an electronic sound system, the speakers were moved to the top opening of the tower.
“We are going to replace all eight of the speakers and relocate them back to the original location of the Deagan chimes, in hopes to improve the sound quality because they will be located in a much broader area,” Guillory said.
Guillory said he hopes to one day be able to raise enough money to reinstall a set of working Deagan chimes in the tower.
Along with the addition of new speakers, Guillory said the mechanism that turns the tower’s four clock faces, called the clock movement, was replaced on Tuesday.
Guillory said the old movement was installed in the late ’60s or early ’70s and has now been replaced with a much more robust unit with a larger shaft and gear motors, making it stronger and more able to accurately power the four clock faces.
“The old movement was very undersized for the hands on the clocks that we have,” Guillory said.
Because the clock is open-faced, the weather affects the movement of the clock hands, which causes issues with the hands slipping and not tracking the time properly. Also, to reset them, someone would have to go up in the tower to manually reset everything.
Henry said he climbed the tower seven or eight times Tuesday while replacing the clock mechanism.
“Now we have integrated the clock and the chimes to run dead on with each other,” Guillory said.
Henry said he won’t have to put grease on the gears with the new clock system.
“Now we have integrated the clock and the chimes to run dead on with each other.”
The Memorial Tower was recently renovated, which included changing out the speakers.
