Greetings
from beautiful Liguria
Here depicted the hour advance arm and the winged arm which move ahead
the hour band.
For those who can not figure out its working operation, have a look at
the bottom of my page http://www.clockmaker.it/ingle43.htm
All the best. Carlo
Merlin Band Clock
Greetings from beautiful Liguria (Italy)
The
recess to accommodate the pendulum in the Merlin Band clock wooden base
is shown while cutting is in progress.
To preserve a nice alignment between parts I choose to cut the wooden
base and the brass ring in a time.
The set up, even if quite simple, is very effective.
I guess Joseph Merlin was forced to cut the pendulum recess likely for
he made a mistake in computing the pendulum length.
Once realized his oversight to avoid upsetting the whole clock design
or to remake a lot of new pieces, he choose the less of 2 evils in cutting
a recess in the wooden base.
Just a (...malicious) thought of mine. :o)
Best. Carlo
The
picture shows the history of the Merlin Band clock leveling foot (upper
part).
1) as a general reference I made some marks on the brass bar.
2) by mean of a cutting tool I gave the first shape to the foot.
3) never trash old files!! Once shaped at their ends , they are very functional
hand gravers. I used on of them to bring to shape the base of the leveling
foot.
4) by mean of another properly shaped old file I formed the ring .
5) knurling the ring.
6) having fixed the foot on a screwed mandrel I gave the shape to its
top.
7) the almost finished leveling foot.
I
like hand turning for it gives a chance to creativity. Not chained up
by fixed measures the piece continuously changes its shape until you get
the satisfactory, to your personal taste, one.
Cheers .Carlo
Friends
Greetings
from beautiful Liguria (Italy)
...friends.... friends...
I was in debit with one of them and when he brought in a very nice and
very small French clock I was forced to say yes !
" it goes fine but sometime it does not strike the correct hours".
" what in the world means "sometime" ?
"It properly strikes for 8, 9 hours and then instead of the full
hours it strikes the half hour"
"Since when ? "
"Since I wound up the first time. The clock had been recovered in
a box for many years and now my wife thinks its place is on a new furniture
we recently purchased"
"Ok! Ok! Give me please just a couple of days!" When the movement
was in my hands my first thought went to the count wheel. I have already
seen more then one of them touched by a file by an inexperienced clockmaker
. At a first glance it looked like fine. So I dismantled the clock for
cleaning.
Reassembling the clock, my attention was caught by a wheel with larger
spokes than the surrounding others but I didn't gave too much care. When
assembled, both the trains run very smoothly under just the pressure of
my finger, I wound the striking train and lifting with my finger the ...stop
( hope you understand) I let the count wheel to make a complete turn experiencing
no faults at all. I realized my friend wanted his clock to be cleaned
and oiled before starting the new life on the top of the furniture...anyway
I wasn't completely convinced and I wanted to try a second turn with the
count wheel and suddenly when it had to be an half hour the clock stroked
the complete hour....
Oh..oh.. I thought it was I ,likely, to miscount the strikes so gave the
count wheel ( and me) another chance. After one turn or so the mishap
occurred once again. In my spare parts I found a count wheel of exactly
the same diameter and replaced it just to get wrong strikes. Watching
with the loupe the stop (?) moving on the count wheel what I realized
was that every time it fall in the notch it stopped a very bit ahead until
the accumulated error gave origin to the wrong strike.My mind went back
to the strange wheel and I disassembled the clock once again . The wheel
was obviously a replacement but checking its meshing with the closer wheels
I found it very satisfactory. Clock reassembled and mishap occurs.
To make short a long story that wheel had 58 teeth instead of the correct
57 ones. Can someone of you just imagine to change a 57 t. wheel with
a 58 t. one in the striking train.
With a new wheel the clock strikes happily!!
Anyway HE still is a friend of mine.....
Best. Carlo
Season's Greetings
Greetings
from beautiful Liguria
I would like to wish you all and your families a Marry Xmas and an Happy
new year.
Sincerely. Carlo
Greetings from beautiful Liguria (Italy)
The
wood definitely moves!!
When I dismantled my Merlin to make the wooden base fretted brass embellishment,
I had to control many times its size to be suitable for the lower brass
ring which houses it.
Once satisfied of the size I wanted to check the final overview and fitted
each column in the ring and corresponding wooden base holes .
It was with great regret I discovered the fourth hole didn't accept the
column for the hole in the wooden base moved away from the brass ring
hole.
I touched the four holes in the wooden base to restore the previous layout,
and my thoughts went to my intuition to leave the original Merlin's clock
design introducing a lower brass ring to maintain in every circumstance
the columns alignment.
The other picture shows the work on the fretted embellishment being in
progress.
The home-made fan is to prevent the brass dust to cover the guidelines.
Best. Carlo
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