CLOCKS AND REPAIRING

Clocks are wonderment to most and how they can make time keeping so accurate.   What is involved in all those gears and levers and how they work to make that mechanical insturement keep track of the passing of that thing we call time.

In the past weights were used to propell or make those gears  move  a hand  around the  dial (face) there were fewerer  gears and levers because there was only one hand for that clock.    Made clock a little hard to read and made one revulation every 12 hours.    Some one decided another hand was needed to make clock easier to read.   But in order to do that more gears had to be added and some gears modified.   So more maintance involved.

Some individual gave a lookat this big  weight at the end of  chain or rope and wondered if there was some other way this thing could be made to run with out all of stuff hanging from the clock and had to have so much space just to run.

Now with some thought and expermination  a spring was made and then applied to that time register,  but they found at first winding, the clock ran fast and as spring run out it would run slow.  So more gears were added and more weight .  By adding another gear the power from the spring would help the spring do its job from first winding to almost end of springs power.   Which at first was only 12 hours.    This was ok  but some person made the comet they would rather have this time thing run longer because he or she would forget to wind.    So it was decided by and individual if the spring was lengthened  and made wider and thicker would maybe run for 8 days.   Then if wound on 7 th day would always keep time, because there was a small amount of power left before clock definitely had to be wound.    This added more mystery to this gadget.   Also made clock work much better.

Now some one decided that they would like this gadget to make some sort of noise and on the hour and maybe half hour.  This started clock makers to thinking.   In order to do that there would have to be another searies of gears and levers and pins, plus another spring.  Each set of gears are called trains a( gear trains) .   With some thought and experminting it was  decided the spring had to be  equivalent strength and length so the chime, gong would work as long as the clock would run.  Now that was all  thought out, what do we use to make the noise??   The clock maker figured out chime had to be heard in up stairs bed room,  so  a metal bell was made and brass hammer and the noise could be heard all over house and would possible be heard by long gone ancestors .     More to maintain.     This was great for many years then some enterprising clock maker thought would be nice if   this clock struck a melody every quarter hour, and another train was added and more levers, and chime hammers and  chime bars.    All of this added more mystic to that gadget we as humans use to measure time and the passing of it.

I have given you a simplified version of the evolution Of the gadget we all use and take for granted because it is always there and doing it’s designed job.

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