#6 regulator with mods

[John MacArthur]

I have now gotten to halfway on my #6 regulator movement and thought I'd show some of the changes I've made. For starters, this clock will not have mercury compensation, but a heat treated Invar rod with a Strasser style bob. This will make it easier to adjust the compensation, as well as reduce the time lag for full compensation that occurs with the mercury bob. Anyway, I've depleted my stash of mercury and it's very expensive, if at all possible, to get now.

In addition I've made the pallets from tungsten carbide instead of sapphire. The sapphire has the problem of the sharp edge at the end of the impulse plane chipping off in very small pieces, and the carbide will not do that. This is somewhat experimental, as I'm not sure about the oil retaining property of the carbide as compared to sapphire.

I have used shielded miniature ball bearings on the barrel arbor, in the weight pulley, and at the front of the center arbor. This should substantially reduce train friction. I've added a counterweight to the cannon pinion that holds the minute hand to remove any cyclical timekeeping errors that not having this might cause.

I have included jewels at the back of the center arbor and both ends of the third wheel. My thought is to reduce train friction as much a possible in this movement.. The other minor modification has been to make the third wheel arbor in the German style with the wheel toward the front plate instead of behind the center wheel. This makes for a slightly more compact movement.

This movement is somewhat experimental at this stage and I'm working rather more slowly on it, but it is nearly ready to set on a test stand and see how much power it needs and how well the pendulum compensation works.

Johnny

 

[Ralph]

John, do you consider end stops in your quest for reducing friction?

You do beautiful work.

Ralph

 

[John MacArthur]

Thank you Ralph - I have considered endstops a number of times; I would expect that they would probably do as much good as full jeweling. I also suspect that the jewels impart much less friction on the pivot shoulders than the brass of a simple plate hole, which is the point of endstops. I'm hoping also that the ball bearings will have a significant impact. I can't imagine a way to quantify all of these separately though. One thing at a time. I will get this movement up and running before I commence all the finish work, so I'll have some idea fairly soon. I'm anxious to see how the pendulum behaves, too.
Johnny

 

[tok-tokkie]

Lovely work.
The ball bearings; do they have at least ceramic balls if not all ceramic bearings? Running all stainless bearings has resulted in fretting between the balls & races on some clocks.

 

[John MacArthur]

Thank you Tok - these are not ceramic bearings - in an initial search I was only able to find the size I wanted in stainless. I may search a little harder for ceramic ones; I agree that they are considered superior. These are designed to run at high speeds with very small loads; in my application they are just the opposite: very low speeds and quite a bit higher load than they are engineered for. We'll see what happens, as this movement is, as I say, experimental..
Johnny

 

[tok-tokkie]

All stainless are fine for proof of concept. I used Boca Bearings in California. They have an excellent on-line catalogue which can be filtered to the size you are looking for.

 

[John MacArthur]

Thanks Tok - I had ordered the stainless bearings from them. They do have small ceramic ones also at ~40x the price. As you say, I can replace them if everything goes well. If I decide to do that, I'd need to determine if they have those in shielded as opposed to sealed style.
Johnny

 

[tok-tokkie]

I got ones with ceramic balls in stainless races from them. Except the main escape wheel bearing which is all ceramic.

One tip I will give. I got shielded bearings. To get the grease out I found soaking them in engine de-greaser then spearing them on a round needle file & spinning under running tap was far more effective than soaking them in acetone or benzin. Did it a few times to make absolutely sure.

 

[John MacArthur]

Great tip Tok, thank you. I checked the prices, and they are not 40x the stainless ones, more like 20x. I assume the hybrid ones would be even more reasonable. I will undoubtedly switch to those after I do some initial runs.
Johnny

 

[John MacArthur]

I have taken your advice Tok, and ordered hybrid bearings. I was not aware of their availability at actually reasonable prices; 2x the stainless ones. Good tip, thank you, and I will de-grease them as you suggest..
Johnny

 

[John MacArthur]

Update on #6. I have recently taken a deposit on this clock, and so have proceeded to bring it to final finish. I am in the process of making the movement screws and nuts, finishing the mount bracket and pendulum details, and will be starting on the dial soon.


Johnny

 

[Christopher Doehlert]

Very nice work.

How did you machine the tungsten carbide? I acquire some for the weight for a clock project of mine but was led to believe that it wouldn't be practical to drill and tap for a hanging hook.

 

[John MacArthur]

Hi Christopher - the tungsten carbide pallets were formed with lapidary techniques. I made them from an old lathe tool insert. I cut the blanks with a diamond saw, and formed the faces with diamond laps. Drilling might be possible with diamond drills, but tapping would be nearly impossible. You might have to braze a hook on to your chunk. Metallic tungsten might be machinable; I've never had any to try on.
Johnny

 

[Christopher Doehlert]

Hi Christopher - the tungsten carbide pallets were formed with lapidary techniques. I made them from an old lathe tool insert. I cut the blanks with a diamond saw, and formed the faces with diamond laps. Drilling might be possible with diamond drills, but tapping would be nearly impossible. You might have to braze a hook on to your chunk. Metallic tungsten might be machinable; I've never had any to try on.
Johnny

That's consistent with what I learned and your're right. How did you make the hole for the arbor - also diamond grinding bit of some sort?

 

[John MacArthur]

Hi Christopher - the pallet body, or anchor, is made of gauge stock, not tungsten carbide. Just the pallet nibs themselves are made from this. See my #5 thread: https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/5-regulator-progress.152773/#post-1244283 to see how it is done with sapphire. I did exactly the same thing except with tungsten carbide.
Johnny

 

[Christopher Doehlert]

Johnny, thanks for the detail. I was getting quite envious of a piece of tungsten carbide with all that geometry!

Again, beautiful work.

 

[John MacArthur]

It's running quite well now.



On to the dial and a few other ancillaries, such as the weight.
Johnny

 

[John MacArthur]

Dial is done, everything waiting for casemaker. It has been running very well for several months now, and is ready for its new home.

J

Johnny

 

[Christopher Doehlert]

impressive and beautiful.

 

[Hessel Oosten]

Johnny,

VERY nice ! (bis).

Like the pendulum too !
What is the fill and the weight ?

Hessel

 

[John MacArthur]

Thank you guys - Hessel the weight is about 3 1/2 lbs, or 1 3/4 actual force to the drum. Lots of jewels and ceramic bearings allow it to run on something like half what the others need with only jewels on the scape arbor. The pendulum cylinders are solid brass, and pendulum weight is around 11 1/2 lbs.
Johnny

 

[bruce linde]

brilliant

 

[Schatznut]

Truly impressive, Johnny. Can't wait to see photos of it mated up with its case.

 

[tok-tokkie]

Lovely face. Lovely mechanism.

 

[burt]

Your workmanship is that of a true master! I'm in awe.

 

[John MacArthur]

Thanks you all.
Johnny

 

[John MacArthur]

And at last the case is done. We had more beveled glass problems; it seems to be harder to get done right, at least in the hinterlands of the Southwest.

 

[Hessel Oosten]

Looks great !
Curious how accurate she will run in the future.

In the beginning you wrote:

"and see how much power it needs"

Any measurements for the escapement ?

Hessel

 

[John MacArthur]

Thank you Hessel. It's been running for several months, waiting on the case. I haven't calculated weight efficiency, but it needs less than half what my other more normally pivoted clocks do. I attribute this to the hybrid bearings and full jeweling. It is slightly under-compensated; as it cools off it speeds up. I attribute this to my compensation sleeve being a. of 12L14 steel which has lower coefficient of expansion, and b. being a little too short. It isn't much, and the new owner won't even notice.

I've gotten a good start on #7, and will make the changes on this one.
Johnny