Mechanical Clock Chime On Time
Mechanical Clock Chime On Time
These are the directions to get a German mechanical clock to chime on time. This means having the clock hands point to the right spot when the clock chimes.
When replacing a clock movement, or getting new clock hands, either one, you will notice it will chime 5 minutes before it should, or 10 min after, something like this. This page explains how to correct this situation. It is unbelievably fast and easy to do.
Working with the minute hand
After the installation of a new mechanical movement , or if you are just installing a new set of hands, you may notice the clock will not chime at the time it should.
To correct this, take the minute hand off of the clock. This is the longer of the two hands.
With this minute hand off of the clock, turn it upside down and look that it has a square hole where it attaches to the clock. This square hole is in a bushing that will rotate WITHIN the minute hand itself.
The correction
So, all to be done is just use needle nose pliers to turn this bushing ever so slightly. Put the hand back on the clock and see if it’s pointing to the correct place where it should chime.
If it is, then it all set and it will point to the exact place it should be pointing to. If it is still not right, take the hand off and try again. Once you get the minute hand to point to the correct chime you then set it to the correct time.
The conclusion
It is really that easy, there is nothing to do with the clock itself, only the minute hand. In other words, to put it in a silly way, take the minute hand off of the clock and walk to the garage with it.
Take it far, far away from the clock. When in your garage take needle nose pliers and turn the bushing within the hand itself. Then walk back to the clock and put it on. See if it's now pointing to the right spot.
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During the original installation I was able to set the minute hand satisfactorily and the clock ran and chimed correctly for months. My problem now is that it will only chime for an hour or two. When I am able to get it to chime again it has advanced 15 minutes (meaning it chimes 15 minutes ahead of itself) and will still only chime for an hour. I am sure that I am missing something, I just don’t know where to begin.
1. Is the chime selector on chime? There is a switch on the 3 o’clock position on the clock movement. Usually this will have an arm coming out of the dial so you can select it up or down, but then some dials are not equipped with the slot for this arm to come through. If you have the type of dial with no selector slot, you will have to get to that side of the movement from the back and see if there is an arm sticking out of the side of the movement that you can raise or lower. Sometimes what people do if this is the situation is they get a brass rod and bend it to attach to this arm and let it run down the back of the dial so someone can turn the chimes on or off by the end of the rod.
2. Is the auto night selector on daytime? This question is for clocks equipped with ANSO (auto night shut off) where the clock is designed to not play any music between 10pm and 7am. So if the clock is set in this mode and the clock thinks its day time at night and vice versa, it will not play during the daytime hours. Solution to this is to either advance the hands 12 hours by turning the minute hand around and around, or turn off the auto night feature. In most cases the auto night selector switch would be on your left as you face the front of the clock dial, at 9 o’clock. Again, the dial may not have the slot in it to change this, it is possible the movement is equipped with the ANSO feature but does not have the arm that sticks out of the dial. Just as above, you would need to go from the back and see if there is an arm coming out of the side of the movement you can raise or lower. From looking at the back of the clock movement, the lever if it has one, will be on your right.
3. Is the hammers hitting anything in its path when they move? If the hammers are rubbing the back of the clock case, or if there hitting or rubbing against each other, the clock will hang up and not chime. Solution is the bend the hammer wires to freedom. The hammer heads are on wires just for this reason. They are meant to be bent into position, 1/8 approximately from there chime rods. This is so they will not double hit the chime rod, or thud and rest against it, or miss it completely. So it is not uncommon to have to bend them up to 2 inches to the left / right / forward / backward directions. They just cannot have any resistance in their path when trying to raise up and drop on its chime rod when it’s supposed to chime.
4. Is the heaviest weight on your right as you face the clock? The chime weight is the heaviest weight out of the three and goes in this position.
5. Is the chain rubbing the seat board or pinched between the movement and seat board? Having the cable rubbing anything in its path, is just like not having enough weight on the clock. The clock is designed to run with the chain dropping right straight down to the weight without coming into contact with anything on its way down. If the chain rubs anything, or is pinched between the seat board and the movement, the clock will not chime.
6. Is the chime selector drum unit jammed? In some cases the movement may have been taken off of silence and put on a chime such as Westminster, but the roll pin does not move with the selector switch. It will happen usually upon installation of a new movement and setting up the clock. So to explain why this happens would be a hard thing to do, but I can tell you the simple fix for this. So what you do is pull back on the hammers that make the chime song. This will only be one row of hammers and it would be on your right hand side as you look at the front of the clock. Of course the hammers are on the back of the movement, but it will be on the right hand side for the chime portion. You move all the chime hammers back at once to release the roll pin drum to move where it should be and it will be fixed.
James Stoudenmire
30yr Clockmaker
Author of Clockworks.com
Caution! The bushing may be quite hard to turn because of paint, etc. on the minute hand. Do NOT try to turn the bushing whilst holding the minute hand – it’s fragile and will probably bend or break. Instead, get a good grip (somehow) on the round base of the hand when you try to move the bushing. The base may have an integrated hex nut that may be used to hold it; but you still may need to scrape away the paint that tend to bond the hand and the bushing together.
Good Luck!
This was very helpful for me! Thank you!
Very true. But of course if it all goes south and the minute hand gets bend in some way we do offer the hands. They do not cost too much. So the bottom line is to get that bushing to spin within the minute hand itself.
Thanks for the feedback
Spade hands for post 1950 German clock units available at this link
https://www.clockworks.com/product/mechanical-clock-spade-hands
Serpentine hands for post 1950 German clock units available at this link
https://www.clockworks.com/product/serpentine-hands-for-german-mechanical-clocks
James