Cleaning solutiion

[rgmt79]

Very interesting article William. Clearly this guy likes to lacquer his movements and his reasoning makes sense, which begs another question does anyone on this forum lacquer or apply any form of finish to their movements? The instructions that came with my cleaning kit suggests brass polish, but as far as I’m aware, that does not last very long.
Richard

[disciple_dan]

Hey, Ya’ll. Hope your all doing good.
William, I’m still working on that Schatz cuckoo. I haven’t done a lot on the clock but more reading, trying to learn how to adjust the recoil anchor. I’ve got a couple books from Laurie Penman and one by Steven G. Conover and read multiple articles on the internet and now I’m more confused than ever. I really feel stupid. I don’t know what I’m missing. It seems the books explain many things about the anchor, like how to make one, but I can’t find how to repair one. I believe Laurie Penman’s advice was to throw it away and make a new one. I’m not ready for that. Anyway, I don’t give up, Ever, so I’ll keep reading and praying that something will click.
Thanks guys for all you help, Danny

[disciple_dan]

Hey, all. Will somebody please help me here? I have to be getting close with the escapement of this Schatz cuckoo. If what I have done to this point does not work then I have been looking at the wrong things.
I have read many books and watch many videos. The clearest example I could find that I understood was the Steven G. Conover “Basic Clock Repair” starting on page 36. He talks about how to Close the pallets. If you have his book you will see what I mean. I hope someone that is able to help has the book because I don’t want to type it again here.
So, my problem is that the exit pallet keeps getting hung up on a tooth which, in my imagination makes it too close to the wheel. And, at the same time, I seem have too much outside drop. (The tooth that falls on the entry pallet.)
To shorten the inside drop at the exit pallet he shows putting it over an open vise and tapping it with a punch. In my imagination that would somewhat curl the backbone and bring both pallet drop off points closer together. He goes on to say that moving the arbor closer to the escape wheel will shorten outside drop. I understand that. What does that do then to exit pallet? In my imagination moving the centers closer would cause it to travel deeper into the gullet and because of the curvature of teeth would increase the drop ever so slightly. Am I close to making any sense up to this point?
OK, What I did in real time to the anchor is follow Steven G. Conover’s instruction for Replacing Recoil Strip Pallets. It starts about mid way of page 38 in his book that I mentioned above.
Here are my calculations: Step 1: Span 3 teeth, Step 2: + 2 = 5, Step 3: Mark escapement wheel, 5 teeth, Step 4: Measure tip to tip of the 5 teeth, 0.350″, Step 5 Subtract one drop and one lock. From looking at my escapement I estimated (I don’t know how you could actually measure that.) 0.060″ So, 0.350″ – 0.060″ = 0.290″ So I took the anchor out of the clock and measured it and it is 0.274″.
So, all that to ask: What do I need to do to open my anchor up to 0.290″, the number that I came up with From Steven’s method?
Also, if I could draw a line parallel to the exit pallet and one parallel the entry pallet, would at where those two lines cross, measure the same distance from anchor center to crossing as the measurement as arbor centers of anchor and wheel, and be at 45 degrees? That is what it looks like when I tried the draw it!!
I hope there is a short answer to this because I really don’t want to take up your time. I have tried to solve the problem on my own after William had help me out but it is still haunting me. Like I said, If this doesn’t fix the problem I’m going to take it to a clock shop to get it done. I hate the thought of that but that is where I am. I’m going to polish the pivots and smooth broach the holes and put it together and pray for it and if it works my prayers will have been answered.
Thanks, God bless, take care, Danny

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Tamas Richard.

[willofiam]

Hey Danny, have you seen this? http://www.nawcc-index.net/Articles/Headrick-EscMechanics.pdf

[willofiam]

Danny, I think that outside drop is the gap between the pallet and a tooth on the outside of that particular pallet….so essentially the exit pallet would have the outside drop and the entrance pallet would have inside drop. Very possible I am wrong so someone smarter than me should chime in…pun intended…. Remember that drop means clearance….. If you do not have enough outside drop you can alter the center distance of the escape wheel and the pallet. decreasing center distance decreases the drop and increasing center distance increases drop.

[disciple_dan]

William, thank you for your help.
I do have that link bookmarked but, when I started to look at it I stopped when he started talking about CAD drawing. I thought it was a drafting thing more than the escapement. I just skimmed the entire pdf and now I see I can learn a lot from it. I’m going to study it. Thanks.
I guess that’s one of my faults, I don’t pay close enough attention. I’ll try harder.

I guess it’s the way that people explain it that is throwing me. I’m going to try to post a Quote from you and then see if I’m thinking right.
@willofiam wrote:

I think that outside drop is the gap between the pallet and a tooth on the outside of that particular pallet….so essentially the exit pallet would have the outside drop and the entrance pallet would have inside drop.

So, When you say @willofiam wrote:

.so essentially the exit pallet would have the outside drop

Are you meaning, when a tooth is leaving the drop off point at the exit pallet a tooth is falling on the entrance pallet?
Ok, too, I’m going to try to stop running off at the fingers so much too and make my posts shorter.
Think you, Danny

[willofiam]

Hopefully I understand your question, if not let me know Danny, I will just post this for now…..when the tooth locks onto the entrance pallet then starts to slide off turn your attention to the distance between the exit pallet and the tooth that just left it…as the exit pallet swings into position it has to miss that tooth that just left, that is our outside drop or clearance….basically the escape wheel tooth that is cleared by the anchor is outside of the anchor…

on the other hand the escape wheel tooth that has to have drop or clearance with the entrance pallet is the tooth that has just left it and is on the inside of the anchor. There we have our inside and outside drop or clearance. Hope that makes sense, William

[disciple_dan]

Man, I just spent another 25 minutes typing out some stuff and when I submitted it, it all disappeared and said I had to log in. I was logged in. Isn’t there some way to fix that?
Anyway, Thanks William for sticking with me through that. I have it now.
Now I just want to make sure the geometry of my bent strip anchor has not been lost. What would you recommend? (Books?)
Thanks, Danny

[willofiam]

@disciple_dan wrote:

What would you recommend?

I would just send it to Bob and have him fix it.

[willofiam]

Well Danny….what type of adjustments have you made so far. William

[disciple_dan]

So, William. Do you think I should send it to someone qualified? That has crossed my mind more than once. Right after imagining myself smashing it with a 10 pound mall. If I do that though, how am I going to learn? How did you learn to repair an escapement? What books do you turn to when you need help? I need lessons on how to interpret what I read.
The entry pallet was badly grooved and I had to sand it quite a bit to get it smooth again and it could still use a little more. The anchor arbors look to be a little big but not to bad out of round. I’m not sure how much play a pivot is supposed to have other than the 5 degree pitch in all directions. So I didn’t bush them.
I have done some tweaking to the pallets and then tweaked them back. I’ve move the arbor centers also. I posted a picture of the tabs on the anchor arbor to ask you if that was the way I needed to make that adjustment but I don’t think you ever answered that one. That’s the only way I could see to do it so, I did. I didn’t work.
Can I send you a private message?

[willofiam]

Danny, no reason to contact me, I think it to be best to post our issues on here so everyone can learn….and by the way….I was only kidding about sending it to Bob, trying to poke at Bob a little @disciple_dan wrote:

If I do that though, how am I going to learn? How did you learn to repair an escapement? What books do you turn to when you need help? I need lessons on how to interpret what I read.

….EXACTLY….I went thru the same process as your going thru right now, reading the same stuff, making drawings, searching the web and asking questions, and I am sure everyone else has too…. I know it may be too late for this but working on a old cuckoo clock as one of the first clocks is going to be frustrating….there are seasoned repair guys that dont work on them and for a reason…they are finicky and temperamental and if your not loosing hair already…you soon will be… ….I am half way to bald 😯 I need to get running so only one question, you said you moved the tab that holds the pallet arbor pivot and it didnt do anything. How much did you move it?

One day it will all come together for you…keep studying…reread this whole thread and see if you missed something….if the cuckoo clock is yours take your time if it is a friends then I am sure they will understand it may take some time…

[stevefitzwater]

Having been working in this hobby since 2010, I am going to say take this movement and set it aside, like William said, using a Cuckoo Clock as your first repair is like diving into the middle of the ocean on your first day of swimming lessons, or more apt, first day of experience with water.

Having 6 years of frustration with watches and clocks, read through many books, watched a ton of videos, and almost every educational source recommends starting out on non complicated movements, whether it is a watch or clock, learn and master the basics, then progress into the more complicated and finicky movements.

when you start in watches, pick up a early 20th century American Pocket watch, such as a Waltham, Elgin, etc. These are basic movements, big parts, no complications. For clocks I would suggest the same, a Sessions 8 day clock, then after you have mastered it, move to a more complicated clock, Cuckoo clocks are the minute repeaters of watchmaking, they require such a deep knowledge and advanced skill set to properly fine tune.

Now with all that said, I am not saying give up, I am saying regroup, and attack the issue from a different angle and build your knowledge up so you can then go back to that cuckoo clock once you have built a solid foundation of knowledge.

[disciple_dan]

Thank you so much for your comments Steve. That is great advice and I understand and agree with that.
As I am working on this cuckoo clock right now I have only the time train in the plates and so basically it is a weight driven time only movement. That is the basic part of the clock that I am dealing with. I think I still have some power lose in the train which William has been pointing me to for about 15 posts. (sorry I am so hard headed William.)
I’m going back to he beginning and polish all the pivots and try to find out how close I got with the 5 bushings I put in.
What’s the best way to do that? I’m going to try just measuring the centers and compare it to the plate I did not push.
Anyway, thanks again Steve. I will take your advise and put it down and work on some other movements for awhile.
God bless you all, Danny

[disciple_dan]

This Cuckoo is ready to fly back to his home. Thank God!!!

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