Tag: clock repair

  • Verge or Crown Wheel Escapement Comtoise/Morbier Clock

    Verge or Crown Wheel Escapement Comtoise/Morbier Clock

    This is a french Comtoise or Morbier clock with a crown wheel escapement. Also known as a verge escapement, this form of controlling the release of energy is the earliest known type of escapement, and the one used for the longest time, supplanted in the early to mid 19th century by the anchor escapement. Here’s…

  • Repairing an Eli Terry 30-Hour Wooden Clock

    Repairing an Eli Terry 30-Hour Wooden Clock

    Here is a beautiful Pillar and Scroll clock, likely dating to the 1820’s or 1830’s. Eli Terry innovated new ways to produce wooden works clocks, achieving the first mass-production with interchangeable parts. Several very clever design and production details made this clock affordable to more people than previous brass-movement tall case clocks were. Our first…

  • 30 Hour Ogee

    30 Hour Ogee

    Ogees are my favorite (of the common clocks I see) to work on. Here’s a nice example I fixed for my friend Thomas. It had a series of small issues: The suspension spring was bent and kinked. I was able to just straighten it out. The escapement pallets had some wear in the form of…

  • Treadle Powered Watchmakers Lathe; or Becoming a Cyborg

    Treadle Powered Watchmakers Lathe; or Becoming a Cyborg

    I bought a treadle or pedal powered watchmakers bench on facebook marketplace from a kind clockmaker. The bench did not come with a lathe, so I planned to use my electric powered watchmakers lathe – just without the electric motor. I drilled holes about a 1/4 inch into the table to recess the feet of…

  • Vice for Clock Wheels [Gear Wheels]

    Vice for Clock Wheels [Gear Wheels]

    A very nice clockmaker showed me a tool I’d never seen before: a vice for holding clock wheels to easily work on them. The jaws of the vice are shaped perfectly to hold a wheel for easy access with files or polishing sticks: I set out making my own based off the pictures I took.…

  • Dickory Dickory Clock: Curing “Mouseitis”

    Dickory Dickory Clock: Curing “Mouseitis”

    “Dickory Dickory dockThe mouse ran up the clockThe clock struck oneThe mouse sat stillThe Dickory Dickory clock was ill!” Here is a charming clock invented by Elmer Ellsworth Dungan around 1908 for his daughter who loved the nursery rhyme: “The Dickory Dickory Clock.” [at various times and places the rhyme has gone “hickory dickory,” “dickory…

  • Hand Tools Toolbox

    Hand Tools Toolbox

    I have outgrown my tool roll so decided to make a dedicated toolbox for the main hand tools I use for repairing clocks. This is one post in a series about my various homemade toolboxes: so if that’s your thing, strap in! Those are all the tools I want to store and have easy access…

  • Watchmakers Lathe Toolbox

    Watchmakers Lathe Toolbox

    I recently bought this lovely watchmakers lathe (and various attachments!) from a kind and generous man named Ray. Thanks again, Ray! Such a nice machine deserves a proper case. Here’s the lathe – an 8mm Marshall, which I set up for left-handed use – various chucks, collets, gravers, and the foot pedal. I started by…

  • Pre-WWI Cuckoo Clock with Articulated Wings

    Pre-WWI Cuckoo Clock with Articulated Wings

    This is a cuckoo clock that was probably made between 1860 to 1914 in the Black Forrest in Germany (according to this). Aside from having cast bronze plates with a lyre pattern, the beautiful wooden bird that the mechanism puppets not only opens its beak but also spreads its wings! First I disassembled and cleaned…

  • Fusee: Grading on a Curve

    Fusee: Grading on a Curve

    This is a clock with a fusee mechanism to regulate the power of the mainspring. Looking into the plates, we can see the fusee on the right as a sort of conical spindle (fusee derives from the latin word for spindle, fusus). When fully wound, the rope that’s on the barrel in the photo is…