Hermle chimes to soon

[don1954]

Hey Bob,
I got that gear and the clock is running great keeping great time. I had it setting without the face part on and it chimed exactly on the quarter hours, the warning came about five minutes before the chime everything was perfect.
Now i put the face on it has a moon gear, had to move that around a little to get it to slip in the teeth. Now the clock chimes about five to ten minutes before the quarter hour. What do you think could cause this?
Thanks again for all your help Don.

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Don,
Good to hear the new wheel worked.
I think there should be a chime cam (can’t remember the name) with 4 lobes mounted on the cannon pinion. I’m not sure whether this cam is friction fit or not. If it’s a solid press fit then the relationship between it and the square that holds the hand should be permanent. If it does move then you can make an adjustment here. If not then you can make the adjustment between the hand and the collet it’s mounted on. The hand should be mounted on a brass collet with a square hole. This collet holds the hand friction tight. Remove the hand from the clock and put a square broach or file into the square hole and move the hand into a new (correct) position. If the chiming is consistent then this should take care of the problem. You may then need to lift the pipe out of mesh with the intermediate pinion and move it a tooth or so to maintain the correct relationship between the hour and minute hand.
I think this is what you are asking about but if not please let me know.
Hope this helps Don, Please let us know.
Bob

[don1954]

Ok Bob i will try to explain it better.
What i did was when i got the movement all together i set in inside the clock case, Just the movement with out the face accembly. What i mean by the face plate accembly is the part that goes onto the front of the movement with the hour numbers and the moon dial. The face plate has four 1/8 inch pins on the back of it.
These pins go into the corners of the movement and little brass tappered pins are pushed into holes at the ends of the 1/8 inch pins to hold them in place.
On the back of the face plate there are moon dial gears that are run off a gear on the hour shalft.

When i had just the movement setting in the case i put the hands on it and ran the clock for a day. The movement worked perfectly. When the minute hand reached the 15 min. it chime when it reached the half pass it chimed 45 minute and hour it chimed exactly on the mark.

Once i took the movement out of the clock case and installed the face plate reinstalled everything back in the clock case it chimed at ten past and 25 passed and at 40 of the hour and at five minutes befor the hour.

Now that it has been running all morning it quit chiming all together.

As far as the chime cam it is held on with set screws

i looked behind the face plate and there is nothing touching anywhere it shoulnt. The only thing different about putting on the face plate is that the moon gear accembly. I looked at the the moon gear and the gear on the hour shalf and the moon gear accembly on the back of the clock face and messing great.

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Don,
If the cam is fixed to the back of the cannon pinion then at this point I don’t know how putting the dial/moon dial on could change anything. It’s possible but I can’t think of any reason that it would.

We’ll cover the chime stopping problem in a minute but first the early chime issue.

Not having a clock in front of me places me in a position of having to ask some very basic questions that may seem dumb but since they can be common faults (things I’ve done many times) they are important to check.

Here goes the first one. Is it possible that you put the hand on upside down or that it was upside down when you had it running without the dial? Some hands are fairly flat and look the same from both sides. Could just need to be flipped over. I have a school house clock hanging right in front of me with a hand that is flat and looks the same from both sides. Doesn’t matter if I turn it over though as it’s a time only clock but if it did have a strike it would show a different strike time by a few minutes. If not then you can always correct the hand position by moving it on the hand collet as discussed earlier.

There can be many reasons for the chime failing to start. Of course the first thing to check is that the heavy weight is on the chime side. Also check that the hammers haven’t jammed in some way and that no hammer is being lifted after a chime sequence is over… this one is real important…the train needs to have a running start before taking on the burden of lifting the hammers.

Did it get through all of the chime points and then fail at the hour?
Bob

[don1954]

Hey Bob i got it.
I thought about what you were explaining and i think i miss understood about the time train cam, i was thinking you meant the cam up in the right top that spins and runs the time train for the quarter,half three quarter and hour. That is held on with a set screw.
This morning i was studying how all this works for the hundredth time lol. I was watching that cam behind the hour snail, thats what i call it its the thing that the arm drops on to let the clock know what hour to chime. well right behind that is a cam with three short lobes and one larger one. the larger one is to tell it that is is on the hour. This cam raises a v arm that triggers the chime train and the cam in the chime train has different size cams one for the 15 minute next for the half hour and three quarter and hour, thats the one i thought you were talking about.
Any ways i watched the cam behind the hour snail and noticed the v arm was dropping five minutes or so before it should. Then i thought, i bet thats the cam Bob is talking about. so i held that cam with twizers and moved to minute hand backward and low and behold it sliped on the shalft so i kept moving the minut hand backwarn intill i got it to drop at the right moment. That cam is pressed fit so i must have jarded it at some point moving the minute hand backward some and causing the cam to slip out of time.
Thanks Bob for having patience with me, everyone else i talked to said i was crazy to even try working on a german clock not ever done clock work before. They all said i would wind up throwing it away. I can say i almost gave up a few times expecualy when i was trying to get all the time train stuff back in time and a couple heart attacks.My back is also so bad i can only set and work on it a few hours and then rest sometime a few days. I really enjoyed doing this project alot.

Now i have a new project, its a Ingrahman Mantel clock 8 day movement.it says made Nov 11 79. Im thinking its 1879. looks to old to be a 1979.I dont think i will do anything to the case its not that bad but the movement need all new bushing.
I ordered a hand KW reamer kit From Mile High clock and cutting and smoothing broaches and a few other thing i may need. I think its going to be interesting also. A new thing to learn or mess up never did rebushing a clock either lol.
I’ll send pics and one of the Grandfather clock finished also.
Thanks again Bob

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by Tamas Richard.

[Bob Tascione]

Hi Don1954,

Happy to hear it turned out to be something simple!
You took on a rather complicated project for just starting out but you did it! That’s a big accomplishment and one that many of us learned a ton from. The Ingraham should be a breeze now that this one is behind you. Good job!

Sorry to hear you’re dealing with those health issues. I know it’s not easy to do much of anything when you feel like crap. Working on clocks can be therapeutic if it doesn’t kill you first!

Hopefully it helps race you to a fast and full recovery Don1954.

C’mon Ingraham!
Enjoy,
Bob

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