The beastie

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Detectoring

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One part of the horology hobby so enjoyed by your clock fool is the investigation of a newly found object. Who made it? How old is it? Who owned it? How to fix it? The lovely tall case this orphan adopter reported finding the other week ... is now referred to as the Smith clock and it has turned out to be a detectives delight and challenge. The kind reader may recall that the seller, Christine, had no info on it. Not a great start. Your local horologist knows a few of the backroads of internet searching and has at his disposal the incomparable resources of the NAWCC . Zo! Searching for "Smith", "tall case", "Newburg", "long case", "grandfather clock" and variations therein provided very few useful results. Newburg NY... I don't think so. Poring over the message boards of the NAWCC and tapping into their online library, which is extensive, produced very limited results other than narrowing down to the belief that this clock is Englis...
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Adjusting the escapement AKA Tweaking the "drop" and "lock"

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The clock was running slow. Very slow. A careful review of the escapement revealed that the pallets were not aligned correctly to the escapement wheel. Thankfully the Schatz 49 has an "eccentric" bushing that can be adjusted for just such a situation. The "lock" is when a tooth from a wheel (brass) hits the pallet (steel). As the wheel spins clockwise the tooth should his the left side of the pallet and overlap a mm or 2. when the tooth and the pallet are touching they are engaged. They alternate left and right. The "drop" is the gap between an unengaged tooth and a pallet. The drop and the the lock should be about equal for both left and right pallets. BEFORE adjusting the eccentric bushing/screw counterclockwise  - Entrance (left side) lock is very shallow, hitting the impulse face (with recoil), Bad. - Exit (right side) drop large. Too wide a gap between tooth and pallet. - Entrance drop narrow. Almost touches the tooth. Bad. - Ex...
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Of pins and needles

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In our last episode your local horologist was contemplating Newton and how his famous force enabled  was presently unsuccessful in the proper operation of the so called Gravity clock.  As a brief reminder our round friend rides a metal rack and when raised to the top and released it should slowly descend along the rack over the course of a day. See the prior post for details. Except our chonky ticker wouldn't.  It mostly fell (well if allowed to). This burgeoning clockmaker had a sneaking suspicion of what lay underneath the dial and the nature of the problem.  No time like the present! The dial is retained with two screws (crude design says this clock snob) and when lifted up and away must be carefully snaked along the hole from which protrudes the pendulum (as there is no way to remove the pendulum first) for proper extrication. A confession.  That's actually not a pendulum in the strictest sense because it cannot swing independently from the movement. It's a...
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