Westclox 1920 Baby Ben won't quite run

[BillN]

Hello All,

I need some sage wisdom from the experts. I recently found a Westclox peg-leg Baby Ben in my stash and I'm trying to bring it back to life. It was very, very dirty but still managed to squeak out a few hopeful ticks as is so I decided to try and bring it back to life. After a serious cleaning and inspection its on its way back together. But now I'm having a problem with it running correctly. I was able to video it showing the problem - the amplitude is waaaayyy too low and anemic. Adding some extra power only makes it tick faster with that tiny amplitude. There's a minute amount of wear on the pivot holes for the fork and escape wheel which
might be where the problem lies.

So to try and zero in on what's wrong, I thought I'd try some attention on the pivot holes. I put a couple of (please forgive me!) pricks close to the holes and did a bit of broaching to see if that would help. I think it did but not very much. Most likely its time to bush al least those 2 pairs.

Now, is my thought process sound or did I miss something? And if the wisdom suggests I go ahead with bushings, how do I find the original pivot hole locations? There is wear on both plates although I think one is slightly worse than the other.

Here is my video of it "running"

Your help and comments are greatly appreciated!
-Bill

 

[captainclock]

That sounds about like a couple of my 1950s and 1960s vintage Big Ben and Baby Ben Clocks, (that also refuse to run correctly, but ran correctly when I first got them.)
I know that these Big Ben and Baby Ben Clocks (even when they first came out in the 1920s) were considered "cheap" clocks compared to some of their more expensive counterparts, so it might just be that these clocks just as a matter of being less expensive clocks just weren't very strong runners to begin with (they didn't have very strong balance wheel hairsprings and mainsprings to begin with) which might explain the anemic power.
But that's just a guess as I'm just going by what I've read about these clocks and their history from various sources on the web, and in books.

 

[R. Croswell]

Hello All,

I need some sage wisdom from the experts. I recently found a Westclox peg-leg Baby Ben in my stash and I'm trying to bring it back to life. It was very, very dirty but still managed to squeak out a few hopeful ticks as is so I decided to try and bring it back to life. After a serious cleaning and inspection its on its way back together. But now I'm having a problem with it running correctly. I was able to video it showing the problem - the amplitude is waaaayyy too low and anemic. Adding some extra power only makes it tick faster with that tiny amplitude. There's a minute amount of wear on the pivot holes for the fork and escape wheel which
might be where the problem lies.

So to try and zero in on what's wrong, I thought I'd try some attention on the pivot holes. I put a couple of (please forgive me!) pricks close to the holes and did a bit of broaching to see if that would help. I think it did but not very much. Most likely its time to bush al least those 2 pairs.

Now, is my thought process sound or did I miss something? And if the wisdom suggests I go ahead with bushings, how do I find the original pivot hole locations? There is wear on both plates although I think one is slightly worse than the other.

Here is my video of it "running"

Your help and comments are greatly appreciated!
-Bill

I think you have answered the question yourself when you identified wear on the plate’s pivot holes. These clocks have very small pivots and wheels so a little slop can be serious, so do the bushings and make sure to center them accurately. Another very common problem is that the points of the balance staff are rounded off. You will likely find trash imbedded in the bottom of the “V” of the balance screws. You may also find divots in the “V”. It may look fine to the necked eye, you need a microscope to really see the problem. Unfortunately new balance screws are not available and used ones are usually as bad as the ones being replaced. Several contributors here have repeated instructions on on how to recondition pivot screws but I have never made them work. The next pain is the hair spring. All the coils need to be evenly spaced with no coils touching, and it must be flat and not pulled off center. If the hair spring is stressed or biased off center you will have trouble keeping it running. Good luck.

RC

 

[shutterbug]

Your escapement is so anemic that I wonder if your fork is placed wrong. It should interface with the roller right at the junction of straight and curved.

 

[BillN]

Thanks for the replies, some good info to check out.