Step by step

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!

There's no jerry rigging this. Having the reamer lock correctly is essential and it has a special doodad on it's...

Well this:

That's the reamer and a special handle that I use for manual bushing.

Which is what I went back to. 

Details about bushing can be seen here from an earlier effort suffice it to say I cut the brass with the reamer and pressed in a bushing.

Here's it is.

And here's me slightly widening the inner pivot hole of the bushing, to ensure a good fit, with a special broaching file. See it's squared edges? Very sharp.

I smoothed the interior edges of the bushing with a smoother and then tested the fit with the pivot of the wheel.

Spins nicely and has good end shake (meaning not too tight and not too loose).

And reassembling the movement with the newly bushed pivot hole and the pivot tip protruding to test the bushing effort.

Yes the time train is turning nicely with that new bush.

Oh BTW remember when I mentioned earlier about the other plate being bushed on every hole?

Here's the image I used.

Turns out that none of those pivot holes on the left (green circles) are bushed! The plate was machined with circular edges around the pivot holes. I looks just like bushings.

Why? 

I cannot think of a reason at all. 

And I've tried.

I only saw this when I took the movement apart and looked at the inside of that plate. Bushings go through the plate. You would see them on both sides of the plate. The inside looked completely untouched. The other plate had no circular edging on the pivot holes, front or back.

One of life's mysteries.

With the bushing done on our clock I could see nothing else that required any additional special repair.

Next up I cleaned the mainsprings. A simple cleaning solution and wipe down with isopropyl alcohol.

The NAWCC crew advises that original mainsprings, if not too tired (lost tensile strength), can be "refreshed" AKA gently stretched out. 

I gave it a shot.

Cleaned and primped I put them back on their wheels with Scott's mainspring winder.

Each spring was rewound, clamped and then reinserted on the movement plate for testing.

It's time for a basic test of the full clock movement to just see if it will run under power.

This means reinserting and aligning all the wheels and levers.

Everything appears to be sitting in the right place on the front plate and now comes the hard part.

Putting the back plate on top.

It means aligning each pivot to their respective hole.

I remember my first few times trying this. It takes considerable patience.

This one took only about 15 minutes to complete.

Then I reinstalled the adjustment screw and it's mechanism, that weird pallet cock, the pallet, the crutch and a few other bits.

And now up on the stand with the suspension spring and it's rod installed with the bob (the weight) hooked on the end of the rod.

It runs! 

In that shot you can see the bob in motion swinging to the right.

But I'm not done.

Gotta get the striking working and some case work and a few more bits.

But we're close now.