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Mechanical Clock Movement Wear
Mechanical clock movement wears out after years go by because the oil turns solid. With age, the mechanical clock movement’s oil solidifies and becomes black and sticky.
By the time 20 or 30 years go by, the oil has solidified and is creating wear on the brass plates of the movement. So, when this happens, the clock movement will not run correctly.
This is when the movement will need a cleaning at least, or be replaced. Of course, a brand new movement is always the best option.
What wear and where
Look at the old clock movement, and see holes in the brass plates where there are small pivot arbors sticking into these holes. These pivots are what the gears of the clock ride upon and as the pivots spin in the solidified oil, this makes the holes oblong instead of round.
With the pivot holes oblong, the holes are pinching the pivots and creating resistance in the gear train. With the solidified oil and the pinched pivots, the clock will eventually stop working or chiming.
Invisible clock movement wear
This wear takes place in the holes that are in the brass plates and is hard to identify sometimes. These holes in the brass plates become oblong instead of round and this pinches the pivot arbor going into it. Between this, and the solid oil, the clock ceases to function.
To have this repaired is an expensive and long process. To have a mechanical movement serviced can cost two times as much or even three times the amount of the new one.
However, once the movement starts having problems due to the oblong pivot holes, something will need to be done. The clock will never stay running otherwise.
My Franz Hermle has been over wined how can I fix this?
Hermle clock movements are made to be wound ALL the way up until it cant be wound any longer. Chain driven units are the exception.
James
Thank you !
I have Pearl Grandfather clock with a chime problem, it doesn’t. It had worked in the past but had developed a problem after sitting a while and the being moved.
The clock keeps good time but there is no chimes at all. At one time it was chiming randomly but not now. There was point that if I moved the silent lever to off and then on I would get one strike but not now. The heaviest weight is on the right side. Only the middle weight moves down. It also has a moon dial.
It does seem to have something to do with the silenter arm. While leaving it near the middle of the swing I heard it gong but not consonantly.
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.