Reply To: Newbie Sessions

[kennyheacock]

Sorry, I haven’t been on this post for a while. The new verge works OK. I drilled a piece of quarter inch maple to hold the arbors on the escape wheel and verge at the proper distance while I tried to figure it out with my ancient protractors from Drafting one-oh-whatever. The Sessions escapements are more of a half-deadbeat but it is different from any in Penman’s book. (I think Sessions escapements may be unique.) I used the German-bent-strip-half-dead beat verge as a model. Pre-bent verges seem to need a lot of tweaking but its OK now. (I still hear a little scratchiness with the beat amplifier but I am sure it was a spot I couldn’t reach to polish. It should wear in.) My conclusion is that a poorly fitted half-dead beat verge escapement becomes a recoil escapement! Hopefully mine is some where in between the two. Time to practice installing bushings now. (My poor sessions clock; it never gets a break!)

William; I got it to strike pretty fast by “loosening” and oiling the fan but I still didn’t like the sound of it. The one hammer is currently bent up so it doesn’t strike. Its just me. I have an Asian clock that annoys me with its loud ticking . It has a German style (Graham dead-beat bent strip with a friction crutch (or self adjusting)). My other Asian skeleton has the exact same escpement but isn’t as noisy. I don’t hear that well so you wouldn’t think it would bother me. I’m pretty old myself but am looking forward to getting older. Kenny