It's not April 1st and I've been off the moonshine for a while now, but I swear this clock runs backwards.
After unpacking it, attaching the pendulum, set the time, I gave the pendulum a swing and it started ticking. Way out of beat and needed about 8* of tilt to get an even beat. It stopped after a minute, I glanced at the time, it was a bit off compared to my watch, just a bit of slack in the gears I guess. I restarted it and watched it again, and sure enough, the minute hand did move backwards for about a minute before it stopped again.
I slipped the movement out of the case and found a standard looking Ansonia 9 1/4 movement. The strike spring had some wire like a shipping wire wound around it, probably to disable the strike. Also the strike lever had been pulled up and tied out of the way of the gear that starts the strike.
I looked at the time side and the escape wheel spun around a few times. The verge angles looked wrong. Then I inserted the key and just took the tension off the spring ratchet to see which way the gears went. It looked ok up to the escape wheel but tracking the rotation through the second wheel to the centre arbour it was turning the minute hand the wrong way. Looking more closely at the strike side it looked like the ratchet had broken off. My guess now is that the winding arbours have been swapped between strike and time. The problem there is that they both are supposed to wind inwards, meaning that they wind up in opposite directions. Who would be dumb enough to attempt to fix a clock like that, it can't possibly work.
Wait a minute, whats been wound up here. Is someone winding me up or what? I suspect that someone, as a practical joke did this deliberately. Now that the clock has passed down a generation or two, maybe the new owners don't realise that its been "fixed". It would explain why the angles on the verge have been altered, and why the strike mechanism is wired up. I don't think this a "hall of shame" job, just an elaborate joke.
I'd like to think that I'm not being wound up, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Greg
After unpacking it, attaching the pendulum, set the time, I gave the pendulum a swing and it started ticking. Way out of beat and needed about 8* of tilt to get an even beat. It stopped after a minute, I glanced at the time, it was a bit off compared to my watch, just a bit of slack in the gears I guess. I restarted it and watched it again, and sure enough, the minute hand did move backwards for about a minute before it stopped again.
I slipped the movement out of the case and found a standard looking Ansonia 9 1/4 movement. The strike spring had some wire like a shipping wire wound around it, probably to disable the strike. Also the strike lever had been pulled up and tied out of the way of the gear that starts the strike.
I looked at the time side and the escape wheel spun around a few times. The verge angles looked wrong. Then I inserted the key and just took the tension off the spring ratchet to see which way the gears went. It looked ok up to the escape wheel but tracking the rotation through the second wheel to the centre arbour it was turning the minute hand the wrong way. Looking more closely at the strike side it looked like the ratchet had broken off. My guess now is that the winding arbours have been swapped between strike and time. The problem there is that they both are supposed to wind inwards, meaning that they wind up in opposite directions. Who would be dumb enough to attempt to fix a clock like that, it can't possibly work.
Wait a minute, whats been wound up here. Is someone winding me up or what? I suspect that someone, as a practical joke did this deliberately. Now that the clock has passed down a generation or two, maybe the new owners don't realise that its been "fixed". It would explain why the angles on the verge have been altered, and why the strike mechanism is wired up. I don't think this a "hall of shame" job, just an elaborate joke.
I'd like to think that I'm not being wound up, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Greg
