Soothing Time: 1900's Schoolhouse Clock

Lovely old clock Fran. I have many memories of being bored out of my mind at my grandparents house as a kid and the ticking of their clock seemed to emphasise how slowly time was passing. I now don't like ticking clocks, it reminds me how quickly my life is now passing by, rather than have some calming effect on me!

There are few things more relaxing than a clock ticking away in the background. My father was stationed I Germany when I was a kid and picked up a Coo-coo Clock that I still have. It's always ticking away loud enough to be heard all over my house and I always get a laugh when I'm on a audio/video chat and it announces the hour/half-hour mark in the background. "Was that a coo-coo clock????" "Why yes, it was. Don't you own one?" :)

This is a great clock. My grandfather was a clock repairman and I loved going into his shop where he'd have sometimes dozens of movements in test jigs all ticking away. He'd set each one to a unique time offset (I think 10 minute increments) so he could measure their regulation and test chimes. The chimes were typically disabled though, which was disappointing as a kid.

Provided they are regularly lubed the wear rate on bearings is very low. The main part that wears is the escapement because this does rub on the wheel. Suprprisingly it's the steel 'anchor' (from its shape) that generally wears rather than the brass wheel. Making a replacement anchor is not that difficult. Main points about doing a restoration are: Check the spring ratchet condition before trying to wind. If this is bad you can have the spring fly, which can hurt you as well as ruining the clock. Clean thoroughly before lubricating. Don't over-oil. One or two drops per bearing. You don't oil the gear teeth. Except for the escapement. You do need to oil the spring. (often ovelooked) The pendulum is used because (in theory anyway) its frequency only depends on its effective length, from pivot to C of G. In practice that is only true for small angles of swing though. Thus the longcase clock with its small swing is very accurate, but clocks like this with a wide pendulum swing, not so much. The manufacturer designed them for reliable running as the primary consideration, hence a wide swing so it will keep going even if not quite in balance.

This is a very cheap "budget" clock of the time, but of the era of technology I would say that the better 18th century clocks were extremely precise, and more technically perfect than most mechanical things we take for granted today.

Fran Blanche

They have tuning apps for the phone but the realities of the mechanics and the microscopic irregularities throughout the gear train and the unpredictable shutters and groans of the spring as it releases all culminate in a sort of chaotic world that has to be assessed over days not seconds. It's not digital.

Fran Blanche

After watching this video, I find myself very interested in the idea of calculating the exact pendulum speed. With the end goal being for the clock operating at 60Hz, or 60 beats per minute, it should be possible if the details about the gears are known, to calculate a pendulum speed. Perhaps on a quality clock such as the one you have, there might be some old schematics out there? Then one could adjust the clock very accurately in one shot, rather than the days of check and adjust. Even with just a free metronome "app" and using your ears to synchronize the speed, I'd imagine that would make for a very accurate adjustment. Now, finding a way to translate the tick-tock to pulses on an oscilloscope might be the kind of ridiculous over-the-top video I'd really love to see! You have some beautiful old Tektronix oscilloscopes I've seen in the background. Hopefully when you get settled in your new lab we'll get to see more of them in action.

What a nice clock you have. I have deep respect for things that are that old and still do their job. Maybe technically not that perfect than modern things, but with much more soul and superiority.

Thomas Froitzheim

I watched this video just after getting up and the sound of the clock ⏰ at the end nearly sent me back to sleep, very relaxing, zzzzzxzz...

Dr Andy Hill

Maybe clocks way back when were like phones, took years before they got from the hand version to the dial models?

Keith Wright

Nice show-and-tell of your clock! When you get the chance, I'd love to see it with the dial installed, too. ;-)

Gee Bee

What the internet needs, some chill time.

I LOVE mechanical clocks. My senior project in college was a uC programmable amplified chime system. We had a two octave set of chimes on loan from Schulmerich, and I used a 8085. The uC would record the keystrokes from a standard music keyboard, and the chimes would strike either traditional chimes clock or the tune that the operator had played on the keyboard. Love this!

That's just cool.

William Alsing