Escapement

Mitchell reached out a few months back. He was looking at a local auction in New Jersey and saw a clock that he liked. Despite being relegated to only seeing it in photos, right away, your clock collector liked it too.    It's called a Tole clock.  Tole comes from the French term/phrase "tole peinte de lac" which roughly translates to "painted tin." Tole painting was the rage all through the 1800's when many everyday items like trays, utensils, coffeepots... even furniture, were decoratively painted in rich styles. Martha Stewart  calls the painting style "folk art" but she's a heathen and is referring more to the American examples of Tole painting. A subcategory of Tole was born in the design and painting of clocks. Typically these clocks are housed in large metal cases, decoratively painted and a with loop (called a "bow" in watch vernacular) on the top. This Google search shows some good examples.  Here's a fine early French ...

Returning to Nana's clock ... Reported in our last episode  on the topic was the concerning issue of the mainspring pressing up against the shroud of the lantern pinion of the second wheel. Still a mouthful. There were several questions in diagnosing the problem. Firstly was the question of the "missing" rod. From my earlier post: Inside view outside view Is there supposed to be a rod D? There's a rod A which helps the strike train mainspring expand / deflect effectively.  Why is there no D rod? Is the challenge based on some kind of anomaly in Seth Thomas manufacturing? In short, no. This researcher found several photographs of other clocks with  Hip movements and none had a rivet indicating a rod D. An example: OK so we know this was not a manufacturing error. In the 1902 effort of swapping over the Seth Thomas Hip movements in Adamantine clocks with the next generation "89" movements did that include a benefit of adding a rod D? Nope. The 89's don...

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...