chelsea ships bell

[George Schultz]

My Chelsea ships bell works fine exept it strikes the half hours wrong. always an extra bell 4.30 2 bells 5.30 4 bells 6.30 6 bells 7.30 8 bells, always an extra bell. On the hours it srikes fine. What should I look for. George

[stewart]

George

I will be servicing my Dads Chelsea in the next month. The best I can do is get back to you if no one else answers this post.

Stewart

[Cactus50]

Hello George

If the clock was striking correctly and stopped I would look at the lifting spring on the arm below strike blocking arm. These are located just above the snail on the rear plate. At the 1/2 hour there is a pin beneathe the snail that lifts the arm with the little spring, the spring then puts upward pressure on the strike blockig arm - which is captured and will be released after the "odd"bell has struck. When released the spring pushes the arm up blocking the last strike of that series. This little flat spring sometimes gets bent downward too much , or breaks, and fails to lift the blocking arm. If the clock never struck correctly I would check this spring and the location of the lifting pin beneath the snail. At the 1/2 hour the pin should be at TDC. Let us know what you find.

[George Schultz]

Cactus 50; You got it right. spring bent down, twisted it up a noch did the trick. Thanks o lot and my thanks to the others who helped out also George

[scotty.dean]

Hello George

If the clock was striking correctly and stopped I would look at the lifting spring on the arm below strike blocking arm. (SNIP). If the clock never struck correctly I would check this spring and the location of the lifting pin beneath the snail. At the 1/2 hour the pin should be at TDC. Let us know what you find.

I have solved my Chelsea Ship’s Bell strike count problem, and I wanted to share the problem and solution here, since it differed a bit from most of the other problems I could find recorded (it was not the Rocker Annex Spring strength or position) – I did not have the proper positioning versus timing for the pin located under the snail mechanism (on the Snail Pinion) that lifts the Rocker Annex Unit (which then the attached Annex Spring lifts the Rocker Unit). This lift pin on the Snail Pinion needs to be Top Dead Center as the ½ hour strike runs through. Although I still had a problem in that the Rocker Unit was now stopping BOTH of the final double strikes, rather than just the second one (to then create an odd count) I next had to move the strike wheel that Chelsea defines as the Second Wheel Strike (the one with the four pairs of count pins on it engaged by the arm on the Hammer Arbor) along so that not only was the arm not engaged on a pin after the strike stops (the normal course of action) but rather that the arm was in a “sweet spot” of the available space between pairs of pins – kept testing until just about dead center worked fine.
A big THANK YOU for the help goes out to:

“Cactus50” or darnold on the NAWCC message board for the comment on the pin needing to be TDC after the ½ hour strike in a help reply to George Schultz.

Thanks!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Scotty Dean
Ye Olde Clock Shoppe
Tucson, Arizona

[harold bain]

Scotty, welcome to the message board, and thanks for your detailed description of the ships bell repair:thumb:
Always room for another Scotty here:clap: