Protect your hands.

Protect those clock hands ?

I guess whoever put this together last really wanted to safeguard either the minute hand or the hand taper pin so why not use a lockwasher.  Pretty attractive too !
After 25 years I finally thought I'd seen it all twice and then this shows up on the bench.  What's it gonna be next?

Howard Post Clock

I've been pretty lazy lately about posting stuff.  I'll try to do better.
Here's a mess of a movement from a Howard Street clock.  I believe it dates to the 1920's.  Howard was probably the premier clock for towers and street clocks and kept records of all of the clocks they sold and installed to individuals and towns.  Unfortunately I couldn't get much history on this one.  I believe some records were lost or destroyed in fires thru the early years.  The clock itself is about 18' tall or so and I think the dial is about 36" - 40" in diameter.  The clock is located in Burlington a block or so off High Street.  The movements in these clocks sit on a shelf in the base.
Here's a pic of the same model clock. 

Here's the movement as it came out of the clock.

Here's the filthy thing apart on my bench which spacewise and toolwise is a perfect size, but a bit small for this clock.

Next the pieces are cleaned and then each one and then hand brushed with either a brass or steel wire brush depending on whether the piece is brass, bronze or cast iron. It's during this process that the pieces are also visually inspected for wear or possible tooth damage.

Here's a shot of the weight which is the driving force of the clock.  It's quite unique that it has a pulley pinned thru the weight itself, which is not removable.  I think it's about 70+ pounds. I couldn't lift it out of the clock either because of the awkward angle, or my old age, so a friend of my son's who lives around the corner drove over and between the 2 of us we got it out.  Getting it back in was easy.  Newton helped me.

The pendulum, although heavy was easier to remove lifting it out by the rod which is about 1" diameter mahagony.  The bob is cast iron.  The rating nut is brass.  Don't know if I have an after pic or not, but the rod was refinished using clear spar urethane and the cast bob was painted with industrial gloss black.

All of the threaded fasteners cleaned and clear coated.

All the cast pieces were acid etched primed and 2 coats of industrial enamel the same color as the original clocks.  The pinstriping  was copied from pictures of original movements that I found on some different clock sites.

 I'll add more to this post a little later.

The simple Horton's calendar

Well they're really only simple if you understand how they work, and so many people don't.  This one is from an Ithica from the late 1800's.  I really wish I had a pic of this one before all of the repairs. There's no way it could have worked.
The hardest thing for me working on these things is that they are all riveted together and come apart as a couple assemblys. The month linkages on the left end of the roller are permanently attached to the frame and unless you break a rivet it has to be cleaned and repaired on the frame.

 

These calendars give you the day, the date, and the month.  Sounds simple enough until you throw in the fact that they self correct for different length months and also for leap years !  That's pretty good for something well over a hundred years old and a  bit crude looking.
Most of the calender clocks you see on the schoolhouse and kitchen style clocks simply advance the date by one each day leaving you to correct for the odd number months.

Here's a pic with the month roller removed from the shaft. It's the heart of the calendar.

 


This is the day wheel.  A combination of the cams on the end of the wooden roller and the stepped piece being pointed to is what controls the different lengths of the months.

Another fine repair on this piece.  Looks like somebody who had a soldering iron but little knowledge, or pride,  took a crack at repairing this. It didn't work. Maybe that's when he gave up on it.

Completed calendar mechanism re-installed in the clock and working fine.

Count your trundles kids.

What clock gods did I anger ?  I'm a nice person.  I try to do good work and treat people fairly. And this is what I get ?
Junghans B42.  These just seem to be tough clocks to overhaul.  Anyway, this one came in from out of state and I thought I had it finished. Lots of problems with it from previous bad repairs.  As you can see, the "punchers" (remember them ?) already had their way with it. Big difference here is that these punchers took some "pride" in their butcher job and did all the damage on the inside of the plates where it isn't noticeable.

It was running just fine on the test stand for days. just before I was going to put it back in it/s case I thought I would run it thru the chime cycle a few more times.  I noticed that only on the hour it would just hiccup a bit.  Never enough to jam, but just a slight hangup.
Started inspecting with some magnification and spotted the problem. In situations like this you don't even get mad.  It's more of a sick to your stomach feeling.

The little pins on the pinion gear are called trundles.  They're teeth that mesh with the big gear next to them. Unfortunately you need all of them and this gear was missing one !  Bad news is that you can't repair them in the clock so this whole complicated thing had to come completely apart all over again. You gotta be kidding me.

Probably good that I spotted it because after I got it out and started making a replacement, I noticed that several others had been replaced with simple taper pins.  These pieces have to be hardened steel and taper pins are way too soft and were an accident waiting to happen.

This is just one more thing you can't see before you give the repair estimate and you get to eat for an afternoon snack.

How often should I have my clock oiled ?

When I was in my store and more involved in retail, I sold many new, and modern clocks. One question that always came up during, or after, the sale was " How often should we get it oiled " ?  Everyone was always surprised with my answer which was "Never".  Of course this was only for modern clocks, not antiques.

It's not that oil is a bad thing for clocks, it's just money that doesn't need to be spent. A clock is a machine with a hundred parts.  They all move up and down or rotate around. Most of them are a metal against metal contact.  The ends of the gear arbors (pivots) are steel.  The plates with the holes that the pivots rotate in are brass. Even with oil these will eventually wear out especially when a little dust sticks to the oil.  Now you have an abrasive. A typical wall clock has a pendulum that swings back and forth about 120,000 times a day.  That's not a typo.  So why would anyone think it will not eventually wear out.

Here's the math for a typical Howard Miller mantle or wall clock. Never touching the thing you could expect 18 years or so.  The owner of the largest movement manufacturer says 15 years, but that might be underestimated a bit. Oiling the clock every 2 years could extend the 18 years to maybe 20 - 22 years, but it's still gonna wear out.  Go back and read the last paragraph.  You could change the oil in your car every week, but at some point it's gonna wear out.

Removing the clock movement from the case, oiling, minor adjusting, re-installing in the case, putting the hands back on, and testing could be anywhere from $100 to $120.  Over 18 years, that would total $900 - $1080 just in maintenance.  A new, identical movement, from the same manufacturer as the original, possibly with some improvements over the original, could be installed in the clock for an average of $500.  Then you are basically starting over with a new clock and possibly another 18 years. That's $400 - $580 you just saved.  These numbers are actually low, because to properly maintain the clock, the industry recommends a full tear down and cleaning of the movements after 4 - 5 oilings to get rid of all of the old oil  (now gunk) which has either been used up or evaporated and cleanings are much more expensive than a simple oiling.

There are some repair shops that recommend oiling the clock every year, so double all of the numbers above. That is some serious wasted money.

Once again, this is my opinion  regarding modern clocks, not vintage or antiques.

Size matters.

Nothing earth shattering here, just a curious photo of 3 gears from 3 different clocks I'm currently working on.  I didn't label them so I hope I can remember which gear goes back into which clock.  I could have put a watch gear in the pic too, but you probably wouldn't have been able to see it.

What's an air lock ?

Air in antique or new barometers has always been a problem.  In the antique wheel barometers fitted with "j" tubes it's not that critical, and the instruments will still function indicating whether the air pressure is rising or falling, which is all you really need to know anyway. But in a stick barometer, especially the scientific fortin style or kew pattern instruments, a little air in the tube kills any chance of an accurate reading.
Most of the antique Welch barometers had "air locks" in them to prevent any air to enter the upper section of the tube in case the instrument was carelessly handled or laid flat without preparing first.
Here is an air lock I made the other day.  It's basically a smaller tube in a larger tube.  Any air would be trapped in the large area, and the mercury would go up in the upper section of the tube thru the smaller piece of glass.

I just finished making this one for a scientific barometer for a customer.