Bushings

Although the "punchers" obviously feel as though bushings are a waste of money and don't buy them, they are the proper way to repair worn pivot holes.  They are not hard or even time consuming to install, but unfortunately the plates need to come apart and this does take extra time.
Depending on the clock you are working on determines the quality of the bushing job you do.  Early American clocks were mostly thin stamped brass plates with the pivot holes stamped to almost look like a bushing.  This probably hardened the brass a little more, provided an oil sink,  and gave the pivot hole a little extra life.

 For a clock like this, the hole can be opened up with a special reamer which only cuts on one side until the hole is brought back to center.  Then a bushing of the proper height to match the plate, is pressed into the opening.  It is then opened up a bit with a broach so it's just slightly larger than the pivot.  Too tight and the gear will bind up.

It's important to match the thicknesss of the plate.  Some repairers sometimes leave the bushings too long thinking the added surface will take longer to wear out, but it's not the case.  A long bushing like this pic causes tunneling, which is wear, but not all the way to the end cause it can't reach, but after it tunnels it reduces the end play of the gear which is no good.

Whether you buy your bushings or make them, when they are too tall there are tools (I made mine) that can cut the bushing down to the correct height and leave an oil sink.

On the eveyday, plain vanilla, American clock movement, a visible bushing isn't an issue.  Same for a modern cuckoo clock. ( I know,  you're probably wondering why anybody would even waste a bushing on a cuckoo, but sometimes you have to.)  On finer French clocks, which rarely need bushings anyway, or significant tall case or banjos,  you might want to make the bushings as invisible as possible.  This can also be done with special cutters.

Flips

Wanna win all of your coin flips ?  Well then you have to get one of these.
This pic, not edited in any way, it's straight from the camera (iphone), is a coin sitting on a mirror, with a mirror standing up behind it.

Tool repair - Hammers

Tool repair - Hammer edition.

Well it's really more tool maintenance than repair.  It's a much overlooked part of the trade.  Probably any trade.
You can't do quality work with crappy tools.  Slip with a screwdriver across the back of a 19th century carriage clock and leave a crater of a scratch, and then what do you do ?  Even if you don't slip you will more than likely botch up the screws like this.

Each and every one of these beautifully blued, 100+ year old screws destroyed because a "craftsman" used something closer resembling a butterknife than a screwdriver.  But screwdrivers will be another post.  This post is hammers.
Seems like hammers should be a rarely used tool in the delicate world of watch and clock repair, but in fact they are used on a daily basis.  Many times. These are steel hammers, but leather hammers are also used frequently.
The issue with hammers is that whatever you hit with it, especially when flattening something, or setting a bushing in a plate, whatever marks, dents or imperfections on the face will be transferred to the item.
Here's two of them I did today.  Larger one still has a few scratches in it that were very deep, but will eventually come out.  You don't want to remove any more metal than you have to.

This is the face of a planishing hammer.  I think it's almost 100 years old.

This is a ball peen.  Don't think it's 100 yet, but when it get's there it will be in nice shape.

I forgot to take any before pics of these two tools, but although they weren't as bad as this one, they weren't far from it.  Zoom in on the end of that and imagine the marks it would leave.

One think to mention is that all of the work on these tools was done by hand, with other tools, that also have to be maintained from time to time.  The hammers were done starting with a diamond surface plate, and then progressive grits of sandpaper starting at 320 and ending with 2000. There is no polish or buffing on these finishes.

This is a beautiful little French hammer probably from the 1800's.  Once I find a nice piece of hickory or walnut I'll make an appropriate handle for it.  It's the one in the center of the pic below.

These are just some of the hammers in my drawer.

 

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.