I wanna hold my hand

[bangster]

Here's my latest problem (sigh). I cain't get the minute hand attached so it points at the hour on the hour strike. Here's why: the motion work is so frictionless and carefree that it moves at the slightest excuse. Let clock complete a strike sequence; when it locks, try to attach minute hand to point at 12; slight jiggle; after hand is secured, run another strike sequence; it's pointing a few minutes early or a few minutes late (or sometime a whole bunch of minutes early or late).

This is because the ONLY thing that anchors the minute pipe (and hence the entire motion work) to the rest of the clock, is the cup washer and taper pin that hold the minute hand on. Until that's on, the motion work is a free spirit;
put the hand on in the 12 position and gravity immediately takes it to the 6 position since there's no washer to hold it; and the very process of putting the washer on moves things around. Argh. I believe there OUGHT to be some kind of friction brake (besides that washer and pin), to hold the motion work still until some appreciable force acts on them; but there ain't...now.

Turn to the picture below.

http://static.flickr.com/49/149327622_9c84dfbc4e.jpg

(1) is the center shaft, from the second wheel. Has a transverse hole at its tip, for the taper pin. (2) is the minute wheel and minute pipe, which slips over (1). (3) is the idler wheel, which is driven by (2) and which drives the hour wheel (not shown). (4) is a diamond-shaped tension spring that goes somewhere.

That's right. I stupidly failed to make a note of its location when I took things apart. However, the only PLAUSIBLE place for it is on shaft (1) underneath wheel (2). In that position, it provides spring pressure between the top of the minute pipe and the cup washer/taper pin. It does nothing to put the brakes on the train until the washer/pin are installed.

This, then, (after all the above prose)) is my question: How would an Expert go about installing the hands on this darling creature? How to hold the dang motion train still while the installation is going on? Somebody help me, please?

bangster

[bangster]

Here's my latest problem (sigh). I cain't get the minute hand attached so it points at the hour on the hour strike. Here's why: the motion work is so frictionless and carefree that it moves at the slightest excuse. Let clock complete a strike sequence; when it locks, try to attach minute hand to point at 12; slight jiggle; after hand is secured, run another strike sequence; it's pointing a few minutes early or a few minutes late (or sometime a whole bunch of minutes early or late).

This is because the ONLY thing that anchors the minute pipe (and hence the entire motion work) to the rest of the clock, is the cup washer and taper pin that hold the minute hand on. Until that's on, the motion work is a free spirit;
put the hand on in the 12 position and gravity immediately takes it to the 6 position since there's no washer to hold it; and the very process of putting the washer on moves things around. Argh. I believe there OUGHT to be some kind of friction brake (besides that washer and pin), to hold the motion work still until some appreciable force acts on them; but there ain't...now.

Turn to the picture below.

http://static.flickr.com/49/149327622_9c84dfbc4e.jpg

(1) is the center shaft, from the second wheel. Has a transverse hole at its tip, for the taper pin. (2) is the minute wheel and minute pipe, which slips over (1). (3) is the idler wheel, which is driven by (2) and which drives the hour wheel (not shown). (4) is a diamond-shaped tension spring that goes somewhere.

That's right. I stupidly failed to make a note of its location when I took things apart. However, the only PLAUSIBLE place for it is on shaft (1) underneath wheel (2). In that position, it provides spring pressure between the top of the minute pipe and the cup washer/taper pin. It does nothing to put the brakes on the train until the washer/pin are installed.

This, then, (after all the above prose)) is my question: How would an Expert go about installing the hands on this darling creature? How to hold the dang motion train still while the installation is going on? Somebody help me, please?

bangster

[oldticker]

I assume you mean you can't get the motion work to stay in place while you get the dial on?

Make/get a spare minute hand centre or thick washer that fits the square on the cannon pinion.

Put your tension washer (4) on then your Cannon Pinion (2). Put minute hand on and collet and pin.
Set up with minute wheel (3) to drop at the hour.
Keeping the cannon pinion down and taking the hand off, put the spare bit on and pin up again making sure you trim the pin.
Make sure the spare bit goes through the dial hole first.

fit dial, keep pressure on c p and fit hand etc.

[bcaclock]

The tension washer #4 goes under the motion work gear not the hour pipe it is what holds everything in place for you. It is the tension for the motion work. In the picture I don't see the cock that holds the motion work gear in place I assume there is one.

[shutterbug]

You can also apply pressure at the minute hand by using hand washers. You have to force the pin in under pressure but it will at least hold and function correctly that way.

[bangster]

Hey BCA... you first:
Not sure what you mean by he "motion work gear". First, some terminology correction. My item (2) which I called the "minute pipe" is the _cannon pinion_; my item (3), which I called the "idler" is the _minute wheel_. Live & Learn.

The only parts of the motion train not shown in the picture are (a) the cock that goes over the cannon pinion; (b) the hour wheel & pipe, and (c) the one-legged cock that secures the minute wheel. That's all there is. Of course, there's the second wheel, which powers the train, but that's off between the plates.

The three gears in the train are the cannon pinion (slips over the center shaft & secured by its cock), the hour wheel (slips over the cannon), and the minute wheel (secured by its half-cock, which also keeps the hour wheel from falling out). Which of them is the motion work gear? I think we're talking about the cannon pinion, which I erroneously called the "minute pipe". If so, that's where I've been putting the tension washer...that is, under it.

Hey OldTick...
I got no problem with the dial. It mounts on feet thru the plate with taper pins. Got no problem with the hour hand. It just slips on over the hour pipe. Problem is with the danged minute hand.
Lemme see if I understand your suggestion. I should make a sort of "handless-hand"and pin it in place along with the cup washer.
Then run the strike cycle. When it locks, handless-hand is "pointing" a fraction past the 12 (time it takes for the strike to complete).
Remove the handless-hand and replace it with the regular hand, pointing to the same place.

If that's it, I don't think it's gonna solve my problem. As soon as I pull the pin to remove the handless-hand, the train will go into free-wheel.

See, I've already tried something similar. Dial is installed. With the hands off, manually rotate the minute pipe until the strike lever falls off the pin. Mark the side of the square that's on top. Put on the minute hand so it's pointing to 12 with the marked side still on top. Struggle to install the washer & pin. Things wiggle. Washer & pin installed, run strike sequence. Hand not pointing at 12; pointing off in the woods. Pull pin, remove minute hand, re-orient it to something like proper position. Struggle to install the washer & pin. Things wiggle. Washer & pin installed, run strike sequence. Hand not pointing at 12; pointing off in the woods again.

So far as I can determine, the hand was pointing right when it put it onto the square end of the cannon pipe. But by the time I got it secured, it wasn't. My theory is that the change is caused by the wiggle --NOT because I got the hand onto the pipe wrong.

Installing hands is normally an elementary piece of cake. This one is slowly driving me nuts.

So, give me some more advice. Please.

bangster

[Scottie-TX]

Is there a good, reputable clock shop nearby BONG?
You're problem is very simple. You're not "loading" the tension spring, (4). (4) is installed first of course to centershaft; (2) directly atop.
Now; When you install the minute hand you MUST add shims - domed washer - whatever will require that you depress the minute cannon against the tension spring to install the centershaft securing pin above the minute hand.

[RJSoftware]

You might need to give the tension washer a tweak of a bit more bend. Too much and it stops movement (I think in your case as well) too little pressure and minute hand is floppy.

On one of my cuckoos I had to shim the back of the cannon pinion so the gear would line up with gear that transfers power to the hour cannon. I used a dome washer.

Anyway, so that made the two gears line up fine, but the edge of cannon pinion (minute hand cannon edge) rubbed against nut to hold minute hand and eventually would tighten it till movement stopped.

The nut that holds the minute hand on only had a few threads so the nut stopped after few turns.

This enabled me to file down the minute cannon just enough to stop the edge from rubbing against nut and stopping movement.

The pressure washer on mine was not under cannon like yours though.

RJ

[bangster]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Scottie-TX:
Is there a good, reputable clock shop nearby BONG?
You're problem is very simple. You're not "loading" the tension spring, (4). (4) is installed first of course to centershaft; (2) directly atop.
Now; When you install the minute hand you MUST add shims - domed washer - whatever will require that you depress the minute cannon against the tension spring to install the centershaft securing pin above the minute hand. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey, I know that. Think I'm stupid? (Don't answer) Just what I said above: the tension spring presses the minute cannon (& hand) against the cup washer, so's the pinned center shaft can grip it and turn it. Once it's pinned, everything is copascetic...except the hand don't point to the right place. Once it's unpinned, the tension spring plays no role, and the cannon flops every whichaway. Re-read the description of what I've done, and what has happened. To repeat:

I get the cannon carefully positioned, so that when the hand goes on it should point in the right direction. Hand & washer go on. I press down (spring comes into play) and things wiggle while I'm worrying the pin into place. Hand is now installed, but DOESN'T point in the right direction. Eek.

There has to be some technique other than the one I'm using; but I don't know what it is.

bangster

[Scottie-TX]

Solly 'bout that;
Yes. Beginning to get a reed here.
Is it the strike synch - that when all's assembled the strike is not in sync with the minnit hand position? Possibly you could reposition that wheel with the pins on it AFTER hand is installed or am I oversimplifying the challenge?

[Ralph]

The hand doesn't point to the right place? .... the right place is relevant to the motion work and hour hand. Are you letting the cannon pinion disengage from the motion work?

Your movement uses a flirt and is tripped by the motion/idler wheel. When you are a few minutes early or late, it sounds like you engaged close.

Are you sure your hand is the right hand for the movement. Does the minute hand have a bushing in it... can you slip it?

Ralph

[Scottie-TX]

Naw ROLF; These hands, altho some are bushed - are not movable bushes. Often they are staked.

[Warrie]

Hello,
Is the clockwork a "Müller und Schlenker aus Schwenningen"? MSs on the backplate. I recognize the picture as my own clock that I'm working on at this moment.
I could sent you some pictures of the front.
I cann't find that tension spring (2) in my clock
The hour hand in my clock is bushed.

Warrie
The Netherlands

[bangster]

Resch Brothers movement. Movable bushing in minute hand.

I'm beginning to think my problem is a combination of clumsiness and brain-failure. Listen to this piece of reasoning and see if it's correct.

When the lever drops off the pin, there's a spot on the circumference of the cannon that is "pointing" straight up at the 12. Call it the zero-point. The object of the game is to align the minute hand with that zero point.

That zero-point is constant. If it could be marked, that same point, after each revolution, at lever dropoff, will still point to 12. So, it doesn't matter where the zero-point is ACTUALLY pointing. If the minute hand is aligned with it, the minute hand is in synch with the strike train.

So if I mark the zero-point on the (square end of the) cannon, I can tweak the minute-hand bushing so that, when it's installed on the cannon, the hand will align with the zero point. And "wiggle" —the actual orientation of the zero point —will be entirely irrelevant. If the cannon rotates a quarter turn before I can get the hand on, so be it. As long as the hand aligns with the zero-point, it will be in synch.

If this is correct, I've been chasing a phantom, thinking that "wiggle" was messing me up, when actually it's just been my inability to get the hand aligned with the zero point. Which means it's not a clock problem, but a clockster problem. And I yam duly embarrassed.

What think y'all?

bangster
clumsy newbie

[RJSoftware]

Can you tighten the minute hand bushing?

[bangster]

GOT IT! As soon as I exorcised the phantom, and paid attention to the zero-point, everything went together. No arjay, bushing didn't need tightened. Just needed adjusted right. Whoopee!

bangster

[Viennaman]

Ah, I recognise a Resch "Remember" clock when I see one!

I have had similar problems in the past, and they're always involved with the hand collet being too thin for the tension washer and dome washer to properly grip the minute hand.

Althernatively, I've known the hour hand go floppy because the minute wheel cock was slightly bent, so that the hour cannon wheel didn't properly engage with the minute wheel pinion.

As for aligning the strike position, I've found it convenient to lock the minute cannon in position so that the hand would point straight to the 12 or 6. Then, you can loose-fit the minute wheel and see where the relevant pin is in relation to the strike flirt. You want the flirt to have just dropped down after the passage of the pin. You can move the minute wheel one tooth at a time until you've got it as near as you can go without the wheel fouling the flirt. If it's still out, you can bend the pin in the clockwise direction to make the strike a little earlier, or vice versa.

[bangster]

Yeah, I had that hour-cannon problem, but found that the half-cock could be adjusted enough to mesh the pinion to the wheel.

"I've found it convenient to lock the minute cannon in position"

I would have found that convenient too, if I'd known how to do it. What's your method?

bangster

[Scottie-TX]

DUCK tape.

[Viennaman]

Yeah, bangster, I found there was some play in the cock, too. As a matter of fact, I have the clock running now with the minute wheel at a slight but distinct angle to the hour hand. Without that, the hour wheel tends to disengage and the hour hand goes floppy.

I found it quite easy just to hold the minute cannon in place with a finger, drop the minute wheel into position and compare the position of the pin with the end of the flirt. If not in position, I was able to lift the minute wheel and move round one tooth at a time until happy.

Then I was able to drop on the hour wheel and lock the minute wheel pinion against that with my finger, then drop the half-cock over it and screw in place. As long as the relationship between the minute cannon and minute wheel was not lost (i.e. the pinion and gear teeth stayed in contact), it didn't matter if they moved at all during this operation. It's really not hard to do, although it helps if the movement is nice and level on the workbench. I actually have a suitable spare back bracket I can fix to my workbench just for this sort of operation.

By the time I finished, the error was so slight that a tiny adjustment of the chapter ring (not enough to notice) was enough to get the strike to exactly coincide with the "o'clock" position.

Mind you, the first time I assembled it all together and tested, I found I'd got the minute hand out by 180 degrees, but that was quick to fix!

[bangster]

Well, I've got this sucker together now, and I yam never taking her apart again. A pox on her, and the horse she rode in on. :mad:

bangster

[Viennaman]

Well, bang, I'm shocked! The only greater fun I have than looking at and listening to a newly working clock is taking one apart! :wink:

Hope it's all fixed now. The main reason I did all the palaver with the "one tooth at a time" thing was because the clock I'm currently working on does not have an adjustable collet on the minute hand. Otherwise, I'd have taken the dial off, mounted the minute hand, taken it to the strike position, taken firm hold of the minute cannon with one hand and gently turned the minute hand, holding it just either side of the collet so as not to bend it. (although "gently" isn't quite right - sometimes you need a fair bit of force!)

Anyway, I hope your Resch is ticking and dinging again nicely!

[bangster]

The bushing on this minute hand is REALLY tight, which is why I take it off to adjust it.

Yep, ticking and dinging. Whew.

bangster

[Viennaman]

Ticking and dinging is what it's all about! More power to you.