Removing the Mechanical Clock Hands
Removing Mechanical Clock Hands
Removing Mechanical Clock Hands is fast and easy to do. The following are hand removal instructions for German mechanical movements post WW2.
German Post WW2 wall, mantle and floor models
Removing mechanical clock hands for post WW2, mantle and floor clocks is quite simple. Turn the hand nut to the left while holding the minute hand with your fingers.
Use some small needle nose pliers to loosen the nut first. Once the nut is loose, turn it with your fingers until it comes off.
Then the minute hand will be able to wiggle straight off its square arbor and off of the clock. The hour hand is a friction fit, so just twist the hour hand back and forth and pull toward you until it comes off.
If having a second hand bit, that is only a friction also, so just grab it with your fingernails, twist and pull off.
American Antique time and strike
These type of movements come in two styles. If there is a minute hand nut, the first style is the same as above.
Be very careful not to lose this hand nut. They are very hard to find and replace. The second style of mechanical clock hands will have a pin holding the minute hand on instead of a nut.
This pin tapers, meaning it's fat on one side and skinny on the other. Just grab the fat side with needle nose pliers and yank the pin out. The minute hand will fall out with a washer.
Save the washer and the tapered pin for ease of reinstalling the hands. If these items happen to get lost, Clockworks offers washers and taper pins for purchase, as well as replacement mechanical clock hands.
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My middle weight (time) is stuck at the top. I have pulled on it …and I have taken off the pendulum and pulled on the weight. Nothing happens. There is no ticking or movement when the pendulum is off. I similar incident happened years ago and the repair person said the cable got tied up or overlapped ? is there a way to fix that?
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The only way is to get the movement out and see what is going on with it.
At that point you may want to consider just swapping out the movement for the new one. That is if the clock movement is 25 years old or more it is time to swap it for sure. For more assistance I would need the movement numbers off of the back plate of the movement itself please and thank you.
James