The Grandfather Clock Owner?s Repair Manual, Step by Step No Prior Experience Required: Clock Repair you can Follow Along

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Contents

SECTION ONE

Introduction

Types of Cases

Sizes

Case Designs

Types of movements

One-Day Movement

Eight-Day Movement

Striking and Chiming

Types of Dials

The Moon Dial

Setting up a Grandfather clock

Winding a Grandfather clock

Winding a Crank-Wound Clock

Winding a Chain-Wound Clock

Moving a Grandfather clock

Normal Maintenance

Dating a Grandfather Clock

Brass Dials

Hands

Movement Pillars

Dial Spandrels

Painted Dial Clocks

White Dials

Numbering

Dial size

Hands

SECTION TWO

Leveling

If it Still Stops

Oiling the Clock

Very Dirty Movement

Removing the Hands

Time Regulation

Taking Clock Care to the Next Level

Clock ‘Fun’damentals

Escapement

Diagnosis

Tools

Taking the Movement Apart

The Diagram

Cleaning the Parts

Pegging

Making Repairs

Pivot Polishing

Straightening Bent Pivots & Arbors

Replacing a Broken or Worn Out Pivot

Bushing Using Hand Tools

Using the Bushing Machine

Repairing a Broken Tooth

Lantern Pinion Repair

Repairing Bent Escape Wheel Teeth

Correcting a Worn Saddle Pivot

Make a Wire Spring

Repair a Broken Dial

Broken Mainspring Arbor Hook

Motion Work

ClickWork

Stop Works

Mainsprings

Reassembly

Striking Setup

Kitchen Clock Alarm

Lubricating the Movement

Test Run

After Servicing Troubleshooting

Put the Movement back in the Case

The Work Area

Going Electronic

Refinishing the Clock Case

Anniversary Clocks

Atmos Clocks

Length of a Pendulum

Missing Suspension Spring

Alarm Clocks

Watches

The Lathe

Clock Marts

Troubleshooting

Lessons Learned

Conclusion

Clock and Watch Associations

Clock Supply Houses

Horological Tool Suppliers

Frequently Asked Student Questions

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Copyright

ClockWatchBooks.com

D. Rod Lloyd 2023

Introduction

There are many excellent books written for the horologist, apprentice, or professional clock shop, but this book is written specifically for a novice clock owner who has an interest in maintaining their cuckoo clock as a hobby and does not own a shop full of expensive and sophisticated tools.

Since I started writing, this book has taken on a life of its own.  As I proceed through this writing journey, I discovered that most of the clock repair skills could be broken down into simple steps that the average clock owner can understand and follow.

You probably know of or have heard about ordinary people who have started out with a hobby and become just as proficient at their passion as the trained professional, fueled by passion rather than money or creating a career.

This book assumes the reader has no prior knowledge of the subject and no specialized tools and equipment.  Our journey requires minimal initial outlay.

As a member of NAWCC chapter 31 [National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Portland], I was persuaded to take over as an instructor of a local hands-on clock class.  It turns out by teaching this class, I have learned a lot from my students.  I discovered clock hobbyists are an incredible sharing group.  Each member coming from a different background and experiences.  Each willing to provide suggestions and tips, more of a roundtable pooling of information.

I owned many many clock books and found myself searching through several to find the answers to even the most basic student tasks.  This book attempts to pool all the necessary information you need in one place.

I decided to turn this book into a class workbook aimed at the new students that walk in at the start of each term with no prior experience but a loving clock project in their arms.  With each project, new questions arise.  I decided to document each question/problem and their solutions in this book, so all may learn from them. 

The skills I have learned on my clock journey have turned out to be useful in a surprising number of times and places in my life outside of clocks.  Repairing my wife’s glasses, washing machines, jewelry music box, etc, etc.

Caution, when you start working on clocks, time seems to stand still, in more ways than one.  Before you know it, an hour or two has passed by as you get absorbed into your project.

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About the Author

My grandfather died when I was seven.  We lived in Southport, England.  He had owned three grandfather clocks.  About a year after he died, I asked my mother what happened to the grandfather clocks.  She said they were distributed to the grandchildren.  I said, where is mine?  She said I think Auntie Florrie got one. 

The next time we were visiting Auntie Florrie, I said to her, you got my grandfather clock, in a way only an 8-year-old could without being disrespectful.  I caught her off guard, but she replied, I could have it when the time was right.

As a kid, whenever I saw an old clock at a jumble sale or going cheap, I would buy it and take it apart to see how it worked.  I don’t think I ever got one back together again, but I enjoyed tinkering with them.

Twenty years later, when I was getting married, now living in the USA, Auntie Florrie wrote to me saying I could now have the clock.

I arranged to have the clock shipped over, and it was proudly placed in the entrance hall to my home.  It was built in about 1880 in Maghull England by a local clockmaker [before the electric light was invented], had a stately mahogany case, hand-painted dial, and ran nicely.

After a few years, it stopped.  I was frustrated that I didn’t know what was wrong with it or how to get it going.  I ended up having it serviced by a local repair shop, and it ran again.  I was fascinated with the clock.

In 1995, my family decided to spend a year in England, including putting the kids in school.  It was a big challenge to arrange to swap houses with an English family.  Finally, we were settled, and the kids started school, my wife was volunteering at a local charity shop, and suddenly I had time on my hands. 

I read the paper that morning and came across an ad for a clock course starting nearby at Manchester City College.  I called the college, and they told me it was a three-year course, one day per week.  I explained that I was only in the country for one year, so I persuaded them to let me take the course, coming all three days.

I enjoyed the course and did very well.  The final exam took several weeks, making a ‘suspension bridge’ from scratch to exact specifications, restoring several old clocks and watches.  I documented the process and took the extensive final written exam all set by BHI [British Horological Institute].  I did pass the exams and became a Horologist. 

Twenty-five years later, I taught clock repair classes and ‘passed it on.’  This manual is the class workbook for cuckoo clocks.

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SECTION ONE

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Introduction

A grandfather clock, also known as a

longcase clock

tall-case clock

grandfather's clock

coffin clock

hall clock

standingclock

floor clock

is a tall, freestanding, weight-driven pendulum clock with the pendulum held inside the tower or waist of the case.  The case often features elaborately carved ornamentation on the hood [or bonnet], which surrounds and frames the dial or clock face.

Natives of the United Kingdom and Continental Europe by and large will still refer to what Americans call a grandfather clock as a tallcase clock or longcase clock.  To put this in some historical perspective, such clocks were known the world over as longcase clocks or tallcase clocks.

The English clockmaker William Clement is credited with the development of this form in 1670.  Until the early 20th century, pendulum clocks were the world's most accurate timekeeping technology, and longcase clocks, due to their superior accuracy, served as time standards for households and businesses.  Today they are kept mainly for their decorative and antique value, having been widely replaced by both analog and digital timekeeping.

In 1582 sitting quietly in Pisa's cathedral, eighteen-year-old Galileo Galilei was distracted by a swinging chandelier that had been just lit by the lamplighter.  His attention got caught up by its movement.

It was no surprise, being scientific-minded as he was, that Galileo began to time the swings. Having no other tools to measure, he used the steady pulse of his heartbeat.  He found that no matter how wide or narrow an arc, the chandelier made, the time it took to swing from one side to the other was the same.

Of course, Galileo recorded his findings, but his discovery wasn’t going to be just another entry in a forgotten notebook.  Some years later, he experimented, trying to apply the pendulum’s precise movement to the measurement of time to regulate a clock's workings.  He hoped to produce a more accurate timepiece than anything before.  For the rest of his life, he and his son worked at the task.  But, despite his many other scientific achievements, he was ultimately unsuccessful with the clock.

In the realm of science, one discovery often leads to another, and Galileo’s efforts were not in vain.  For his work paved the way for Christian Huygens, a Dutch astronomer who himself was in pursuit of a more accurate clock for predicting the movement of the stars and planets.  

Accuracy of time to an astronomer is like a sharp chisel to a sculptor.  Precision is a must. In 1656, Huygens successfully hitched a pendulum to the workings of a clock.  It revolutionized clock making by significantly increasing the accuracy of timepieces from fifteen minutes per day to one minute per day using a three-foot pendulum.

How did grandfather clocks get to be so tall?

A grandfather clock had to be six to nine feet tall to contain its three-foot-long pendulum, as well as its weights, which needed to drop several feet for the clock to run for any period of time.

Why is it call Grandfather clock?

There was once an American songwriter named Henry Clay Work who visited England sometime in 1875.  He was staying in the George Hotel in North Yorkshire.

One day, Henry noticed quite an unusual clock sitting in the hotel’s lobby, serving no real purpose.  It was a large, unmoving, motionless pendulum clock with its hands completely jammed.  That intrigued Henry, so he went on to inquire about its history.

The hotel's proprietors told him that the clock belonged to the late Jenkins brothers, who once owned that same hotel.  The clock was intended for the older brother.  It was supposedly one of the greatest and the most reliable timepieces one could ever get. However, the clock suddenly started to slow down and became less accurate when the older brother passed away.  The clock is said to be ‘dead’ and ‘silent’ since then.

Although that story is more local folklore than anything, the hotel credits it as the main inspiration behind grandfather clocks.  

Being a songwriter, Clay Work wrote an entire song about that whole clock incident. The song was released in 1876, and it was called My Grandfather’s Clock.

The song became popular, and fans went crazy over it.  Soon enough, ‘grandfather clock’ became the new moniker for those longcase clocks.

Grandfather's Clock (1876)

Words and Music by Henry Clay Work

1. My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,

So it stood ninety years on the floor;

It was taller by half than the old man himself,

Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,

And was always his treasure and pride;

But it stopp'd short – never to go again –

When the old man died.

CHORUS

Ninety years without slumbering [tick, tick, tick, tick],

His life seconds numbering [tick, tick, tick, tick],

It stopp'd short – never to go again –

When the old man died.

2. In watching its pendulum swing to and fro,

Many hours had he spent while a boy;

And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know

And to share both his grief and his joy.

For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door,

With a blooming and beautiful bride;

But it stopp'd short – never to go again –

When the old man died.

CHORUS

3. My grandfather said that of those he could hire,

Not a servant so faithful he found;

For it wasted no time, and had but one desire –

At the close of each week to be wound.

And it kept in its place – not a frown upon its face,

And the hands never hung by its side;

But it stopp'd short – never to go again –

When the old man died.

CHORUS

4. It rang an alarm in the dead of the night –

An alarm that for years had been dumb;

And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight –

That his hour of departure had come.

Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime,

As we silently stood by his side;

But it stopp'd short – never to go again –

When the old man died.

CHORUS

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In addition to their sentimental value when handed down through the generations, grandfather clocks are excellent timekeepers that add significant visual appeal to a home's décor.  There are few pieces of furniture that are as functional, attractive, and worthy of heirloom status.

During the early years, only the nobility owned a grandfather clock.  Owning one of these clocks was a sign of wealth and importance.  It was