New Haven Chime Clock

[hookster]

A neighbour of mine just brought me in one for repair. I know this is a challenging movement, and is written up so in Steven Conover's excellent book on Chime Clock Repair. My question though relates to how the hammers are lifted. As you can see in this photo, then hammers get lifted by very thin metal strips. There is no way I can see to disengage them at the bottom. It looks to me like they disengage at the top, by lifting each one up and then pulling out sideways to the left, but I have tried wiggling them off with no success. Has anyone out there the magic answer, as I don't want to break them and they must be disconnected to remove the movement from the case. Thanks in advance.

 

[harold bain]

You will find they have a slit on the side at the bottom to make them removable in that direction. A fun movement to work on, no doubt.

 

[hookster]

Bingo!! Thanks Harold. Now the fun part begins on this one.

You will find they have a slit on the side at the bottom to make them removable in that direction. A fun movement to work on, no doubt.

 

[R. Croswell]

What did you do to your neighbor to deserve this!

 

[Bruce Alexander]

I'm glad that you have Conover's book Hookster. I'm sure you'll do fine. Fortunately you don't have to ship it. Personally I've found that getting these things to reliably go into, and come out of warning is like balancing something rigid on the edge of a knife. Loads of fun...if you like playing with knives. :cyclops: Have fun and good luck with it.

 

[hookster]

Thanks for the encouragement, LOL.:cyclops:

I'm glad that you have Conover's book Hookster. I'm sure you'll do fine. Fortunately you don't have to ship it. Personally I've found that getting these things to reliably go into, and come out of warning is like balancing something rigid on the edge of a knife. Loads of fun...if you like playing with knives. :cyclops: Have fun and good luck with it.

 

[hookster]

All kidding aside, and in addition to the reference book that I had previously mentioned, what it is important, on this movement, is to first note, in fine detail, the proper position everything was in before disassembling. Photos only help somewhat, in this instance, as the movement is quite small for a chimer, and is complicated. If things are stuck, spray liberally with something like Liquid Wrench, before disassembling, to free things up so you can observe how the trains should ideally run. Definitely not a movement for a newbie, or the those faint of hear, or those who are 'all thumbs' to begin their clock training on.

Thanks for the encouragement, LOL.:cyclops:

 

[hookster]

All back together and ticking and chiming away in my test area. Getting the strike correct is a bit tricky, especially with the set 'screws' not being screws at all but square headed nuts. Also, the inner third plate makes reassembly a bit of a bitch. Added to this, someone long ago had put a woefully underpowered and thin strike mainspring in it, which had to be replaced with the correct one. Maybe this is why the owner said it never worked properly for his parents after getting it back from a repair shop 25 years ago. Guess he threw in whatever he had at hand, and it had been re-holed very crudely, to say the least.

I'm glad that you have Conover's book Hookster. I'm sure you'll do fine. Fortunately you don't have to ship it. Personally I've found that getting these things to reliably go into, and come out of warning is like balancing something rigid on the edge of a knife. Loads of fun...if you like playing with knives. :cyclops: Have fun and good luck with it.

 

[harold bain]

At least the mainsprings are a separate assembly that can be put on after getting everything else together. Well done!!
I enjoy the challenge of these movements, and find them to be quite good when properly set up. And those chimes sound pretty good too.

 

[hookster]

Very true, Harold, about the ease of barrel removal. Fortunately I noticed and questioned the strike spring while I had it out of the barrel, so I replaced it with the correct one (from a donor parts movement) before reassembling everything. And, yes, the chimes are indeed beautiful on this one.

At least the mainsprings are a separate assembly that can be put on after getting everything else together. Well done!!
I enjoy the challenge of these movements, and find them to be quite good when properly set up. And those chimes sound pretty good too.

 

[Bruce Alexander]

Congrats hookster!
I've also found the strike mainsprings to be very weak in comparison to the other two so perhaps the movement was originally designed to use a relatively weak strike train mainspring. If you get used to really cranking on the stronger springs, I imagine that it would be relatively easy to crank too hard on the strike spring. I did have to re-hole the strike spring on the last "Abbey" I worked on.

Getting that spring loaded chime lock plate to play nice with the ultra short warning run is really a balancing act. The overlapping gear trains possible with the triple-plate design allows for a very small chime movement alright, but I've found it kind of humorous when you find these movements in cavernous cases! :cyclops:

They're interesting to work with though. Certainly not your "typical" movement.

I agree that the chime rods New Haven used for these clocks do tend to sound quite nice.