Each clock repairer seems to have their own favorite method for cleaning their clocks. Some prefer mineral spirits; some like ammoniated cleaners; some like dish detergent. Because I’m just starting out, my particular cleaning process is evolving. This post covers my current process and recipes.
Continue reading Cleaning a Clock MovementTag Archives: Maker
I (Stupidly) Bend the Vise Faces Parallel
DON’T DO WHAT I DID! I didn’t realize the dangers until I was done.
A vise’s jaw faces are supposed to be parallel, that is: perfectly flat when they meet. As you can see, this vise’s jaws weren’t.
Continue reading I (Stupidly) Bend the Vise Faces Parallel
Trying to Remove Rusted Screws from the Vise
Score so far: Vise: 1, Me: 0. In this post I tell the sad tale of trying to extract the jaw face screws that are frozen with rust – nothing has worked for me.
Warning: Once again, I don’t know what I’m doing!
Continue reading Trying to Remove Rusted Screws from the Vise
Removing Rust and Paint from the Vise
I wasn’t happy with how much rust remained after the vinegar treatment, so I decided to give the vise a treatment with Evapo-Rust – my favorite rust remover.
I also decided that so little paint was left, I’d strip the remaining paint off, either with paint stripper or a wire wheel, depending on whether the paint had lead in it.
Continue reading Removing Rust and Paint from the Vise
Restoring a Rusty Vise – it Begins
WARNING: I don’t know what I’m doing!
On a whim I bought a rusty, Ace brand 3 1/2″ (say 90 mm) vise at a garage sale. I’ve watched a few vise restoration videos, so I think I have a chance at restoring it…
How it started: I’ve been watching a lot of Matthew Read’s excellent clock repair videos (Open Clock Club Archive, How to repair pendulum clocks, and How to Repair Pendulum Clocks – LIVESTREAM). Lately he’s been repairing an early 19th century clock, doing a lot of metalworking in the process. Inspired by that work – and needing a vise for my clockmaker’s bench – I decided to buy a rusty vise and attempt to restore it. This post covers the first step in that restoration.
Continue reading Restoring a Rusty Vise – it Begins
Building a Cuckoo Clock Test Stand
The family cuckoo clock I’m working on is being capricious about when it decides to play the music, so I’ve built a test stand that will let me see what’s going wrong.
After looking through the wide variety of weight-driven clock test stands on NAWCC.org. I decided to build a floor-standing U-frame.
Continue reading Building a Cuckoo Clock Test Stand
Cleaning and Adjusting a Cuckoo Clock’s Musical Movement
I’m in the process of cleaning and repairing a family musical cuckoo clock. I’ve watched a lot of videos on repairing cuckoo clocks, and have disassembled, cleaned, and repaired one cuckoo movement, so I think I’m as prepared as I can be for working on the clock movement.
The musical movement is another matter. What follows is a detailed How To that captures what I learned, what to do, and what not to do.
Continue reading Cleaning and Adjusting a Cuckoo Clock’s Musical Movement
Replacing a Loose Warning Pin
My Ansonia kitchen clock had a loose warning pin – the pin that stops the clock’s gonging at the right time – so I decided to bite the bullet and do my very first actual metalworking, no-going-back, clock repair!
Continue reading Replacing a Loose Warning Pin
Is That Cuckoo a 1-Day Clock, or an 8-Day Clock?
Because of the economics of cuckoo clock repair, you can easily find old, dirty cuckoo clock movements on eBay for a fraction of what a new movement costs. These movements come with no documentation, so you get to work out which chains, weights, and bellows (cuckoo whistles) are right for them.
In this post I calculate the run time (1 day vs. 8 day) of a cuckoo movement I recently bought, and the Links Per Foot of the chain it uses. These two numbers tell me what parts to buy to make a clock case for this movement.
Continue reading Is That Cuckoo a 1-Day Clock, or an 8-Day Clock?
Calculating a Clock’s Ideal Pendulum Period, the Sequel
In an earlier post I calculated the ideal pendulum period for the Korean clock by counting its wheels’ teeth (outer teeth) and pinions (inner teeth). This post is an update based on the errors I made while attempting to do the same for my second clock: the Ansonia kitchen clock.
What follows is a more detailed “how to” for calculating the pendulum period based on gear ratios.
Continue reading Calculating a Clock’s Ideal Pendulum Period, the Sequel