Escapement

Sometimes things creep up on you when you least expect them. Recently I instituted and announced a change to the template for this blog.  It had several new features that I liked. It was only after publishing it, experiencing some of the unintended changes, and getting helpful feedback (thanks James !) that I decided to roll back to something a little simpler. The updated template I had used was "dynamic." Readers may have noticed that clicking on a blog entry resulted in an animation opening the entry. Kinda cool I guess and it had a nice feature of being able to choose your own layout.  However... Clicking on photos did not result in the full resolution versions that I had uploaded. Not good. I work hard on getting good images to help tell the story of my clock work. AND sometimes images loaded slowly or not at all! That is really not good. AND another thing... (A small but rather cool technical digression.) I'm a regular user of the Mac browser Safari. For most Mac us...

Last night your local horologist and spouse had dinner with Ted (and Lisa and Kelsey and Ryan).  Turn's out Ted's clock was actually from his Grandmother (Nana). So here's to Nana and we'll refer to it as her clock from now on. In our last episode  we were getting Nana's Adamantine bushed, cleaned up and running.  The movement fully reassembled and the time train seemed to run well but the clock didn't strike. So keeping time but not striking. The primary feature of a clock is timekeeping but many clocks have secondary features of striking or chiming or both. Chiming is when the clock plays a melody on the hour. Classically the Westminster Chimes like Big Ben. Nana's clock does not have a chiming function but it does have a striking function. A clock is striking when it hits a gong or bell at the top of the hour, in count with the current hour. So for example "bong, bong, bong" at 3 o'clock, "bong, bong, bong, bong" at 4 o'cloc...

In our last episode I was de-rusting Ted's Adamantine  and had noted that some bushing was needed. Close inspection left me comfortable that I could only identify one pivot needing a bush. The one I thought. Several of the other pivots holes were a bit loose but that's quite common with classic American mechanical clocks. As long as the pivot holes are not oval'd from wear and not dramatically loose they should be ok. American clocks were often supplied with powerful mainsprings. This means that they would run even after many years without cleaning or repair. It also makes them pretty tolerant to more subtle things that can stop other clocks.  But the pressures from those mainsprings do wear pivot holes necessitating bushing. I have done bushing by hand before but this was the first time I tried my new (to me) bushing tooI. I got our patient on the operating table. And...  I realized that I didn't have the right adapter on this machine for my bushing reamer. Drat! The...

Hey horology fans.  Ok everybody settle down. In short I've long been wanting to refresh the layout of this blog so I'm making a modest change. I hope you like the new look. There's more entries visible on the home page plus more text to help indicate the contents of the post.  Besides if you don't like the look, this new template allows you to try some different views yourself. Just select the dropdown menu on the upper left when you're on the home page. The default I have it on is "Magazine" but you can dial it in however you like! I love getting feedback about my blog and any of timepieces I'm working on so please add a comment on the bottom of any post by clicking the "Add a comment" link. Thanks! The Clock Fool

In our last episode I was not so much cleaning as completing the disassembly of Ted's Adamantine .  Historically I have cleaned clock movements with a product called DEOX-007 .  Super spy name.  Ammonia is a key ingredient that is especially good at cleaning brass. It's water-based and I like it but it does involve a lot of hand scrubbing. This go round I tried a new solution and process to clean the clock movement parts. It's a non-water based ammoniated cleaner  as water can be a scourge to the steel in clock parts, not that I had any real problems with it before. I tried the new solution in my ultrasonic cleaner for the first time as well. Much faster and quite a bit easier than scrubbing. The results were good but it left a residue that I didn't like. I'll have to tweak this somehow. Overall though a vast improvement. After parts are cleaned I reassemble portions of the movement to do tests. So in this case I've put the striking train wheels in the plates j...

Back to Ted's Adamantine . In our last episode I did a disassembly of the movement and it was time to clean the parts. Well there were a couple parts I didn't completely disassemble, yet. The two mainsprings were still attached to their wheels and held with clamps . The springs still need to be removed from the wheels and doing so requires a terrific tool.  A mainspring winder.  And I have a fine example, custom built by craftsman extraordinaire, Scott Johnson . The principle function of a mainspring winder is to safely control the installation or removal of mainsprings on and off their respective wheels. A mainspring is hooked to the wheel arbor and the spring must be fully unwound to release it. Winder made by JohnsonArts is beautifully crafted. More industrial versions look like this. Here's one of the mainspring wheels taken off the clock with the spring wound and held by my clamp, peeking out under my index finger. And here it is inserted in the winder which holds the...

In our last episode  on the Waltham 0s I made great use of my watch trays during disassembly. Watch trays are incredibly useful for keeping parts well organized and safe. The trays come in sets of 5 different colors and are stackable . Keeping track and segregating parts in related sections is key to watch work. Now back to our Waltham... while much of my focus has been on the movement I also spent time on the watch case. Despite its missing crystal, the case of our watch is in good shape. Just a bit dirty but really looks good overall. There is one part of the case that lives outside the moment but is critical to the function of the watch, the pendant. The pendant is comprised of the crown and neck of the watch that connects to the case. Here's the pendant on our Waltham with it's crown at the right.  Most watches produced in the last 140 years are wound and set by pulling / pushing and turning the crown. They are said to be "pendant set." Virtually every modern mec...