Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Seth Thomas Wall Clock

This Seth Thomas wall clock came to me because it stopped running. It is a large wall clock that is well made. It is time only and is run by a weight. It does have a second hand which goes through the dial and affixes on the escape wheel.
When I took the dial off, I discovered that the cable had come off the pulley and was caught.
I replaced the cable. When replacing the cable you should measure the diameter and length of the old one. Assuming the old cable is the correct one for the clock. I also put new bushings in the clock. This is a simple movement, in that it has only one "train" of wheels. But the design was well thought out. In the picture above and below you can see it has 4 posts at the bottom and top of the plate. The two slightly larger silver ends are actually what holds the movement to the case bracket. The two black screws hold the clock plates together. This is the first clock I have seen that mounts to the case in this way.  
It has a key that you put on the square shaft that turns the drum. This winds the cable around the drum pulling the weight up.  When pulling up any weights, you never want to put any slack in the cables or chains. I have the minute hand on the clock while testing it. Before I put the minute hand on, the wheel behind the hand would take about 24 hours and it would move forward on the hand shaft and wedge itself against the washer on the minute wheel and stop the clock. If they all do this I was not aware of it. This is the first clock for me. So to run the clock, it has to have the minute hand on it to hold the hour wheel in place.
In my opinion, Seth Thomas did a excellent job, in both the style of the case and the quality of the movement.