Alignment

Patient readers, we have traveled far from what started as a review of parts on Jeff's kitchen counter...

In our last episode your local horologist was still working to just get the Thomas Adams English Bell Strike clock to run.

This most recent essay was a flailing at friction to enable beat adjustment of the movement. In particular that effort was to ensure that the precise angle between the crutch and the anchor would align correctly to the slot in the pendulum.

Once again the image of the gizmo in question:

Effectively speaking that crutch has to hang inline with the center of the anchor and the pin itself should point straight along in vertical alignment with the anchor arbor and at an angle such that it is centered and perpendicular to the slot of the pendulum and entering roughly at its center.

Whew.

Like this:

Your bender-of-metal will spare you the details but between now being able to adjust the beat and seat the pendulum suspension spring in the suspension bridge / cock above...

Oh yeah. That needed work too.

See how the head of the suspension spring is circular? It's that little brass nubbin up top there.

Its edges are beveled, protruding outward and in so engage with a notch on either edge of the cock on the suspension bridge.

Here's the thing... 

Those notches hold the entire pendulum aloft in place, preventing it from sliding off the end of the cock.

When testing / hanging the pendulum on the cock those notches held but just barely. They were quite narrow.

YLH was worried. The pendulum weighed a ton.

Zo, a bit of filing widened the seat of the notches.

Much better. 

That pendulum would not slip on its own or via an accidental bump.

Now there were couple more things needed to be done in service of YLH's principle: first get the thing to run

The movement needed new weight cords. 

These were provided by Jeff when YLH brought the clock back to the shop. The original gut cord came along for the ride. It was quite stiff and almost brittle. Definitely needed to be replaced.

Nylon cord will last a long time. Which YLH dutifully installed on the main wheels.

But more was needed. 

The movement itself is seated in the case of the clock on a seatboard. The movement is anchored to that board.

The bottom blocks of our seatboard seemed a bit off kilter but this could not be assessed until testing the seating of the board itself in the clock's case which remained with the customer.

Back to our movement. When upright its corners sit in slots on the seatboard and the cords drop through two large cutouts. There also a cutout for that descended hour wheel.

The cords drop down, loop back up through the pulleys and then back through holes in the seatboard where they are finally anchored. 

Your horological detective surmised which of the many holes lined up best and created new anchors to secure the ends of the cords.

Here we arrived at a milestone.

Wait.

Quick pause.

One thing YLH left out of his treatises of late was that during all of the previous work on the clock we had also undertaken a cleaning of the movement parts. An essential part of any clock service. No small task but rather mundane and the process exposed only a few minor tweaks and repairs that were enacted in situ.

YLH has spent a long time tinkering with methods of movement cleaning (perhaps another essay) but as a result of all that has become quite the fan of the cleaning agent Deox-7 and isopropyl alcohol as his main weapons of choice.

Suffice for now that our movement was clean.

Back to our story...

So after completing the work noted above as well as the: 

Screw replacement numero 1

Pin creation

Screw replacement numero 2

Spring bending

Pulley arm straightening

Endless crutch measurements

Spring replacement

and friction fitting...

And we had a cleaned movement...

We could finally try assembling all the parts of this heretofore dead creature lovely clock and see if it actually comes back to life thus living up to our first principle!

Your principled poet of things horological will share that experience...

Next time!