Hi Mahlon,
Studying the chime mechanism and having a complete understanding of how it works will make assembly and timing much easier. The problem is that it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on with all the extra wheels and levers from the time and strike train blocking the view and complicating things. What I recommend is to remove all of the strike side components as well as the time train excluding the center wheel and center cam. The lifting cam is the one with four lifting lobes which is mounted to the center arbor and sits on the ‘outside’ of the front plate.. You can manually turn center arbor and attached lifting cam to raise the lifting lever which activates the chime side by releasing a stop pin mounted between the plates on a wheel. Getting these extra components out of the way will make it much easier to figure out how things should be set up. Also no need to worry about the chiming sequence just yet until you fully understand what’s going on. You can then make a simple adjustment to the pin drum (on the back of the plate) to adjust the sequence. I’ve recently completed some animations and tons of pics on setting the chime correction cam and how it works (mounted on the underside of the locking plate) for the British Anvil Chime Movement. I’m working desperately to get it up on the new blog by the first of the year! I wish I could put it up here right now as I’m sure it would help you but I need to put a simi transparant watermark with my name on it to protect the copyright. One thing to note on your clock is that the locking of the chime train does NOT take place on the outside of the front plate at the locking cam with a locking hook like some German clocks do but rather between the plates at the locking pin or a ledge on a locking disk and a locking lever/detent. I think if you remove those extra components you should be able to understand what’s going on. As for the rack and pinion strike which is activated by the long lever that reaches from the chime side to the slot in the plate on the strike on the front of your clock, you should find that the explanations and animations in the Clock course cover that pretty well.
If you have questions as you go just let us know. I can always put some pics/frames from the animations up here for you.
I’ve uploaded a couple of screen captures of a frame from an animation just to give you an idea of what the animations will be like. Except they move!!
Bob
