Clock case

“ The clock which Bertolla made for the Baron of Cles is a tall, narrow, case clock of ebony or ebonized pearwood which is approximately 9-1/2 feet in height. The decoration of the case is considerably more conservative than the one made for Di Noris, but the black wood is decorated with silver trim and carved designs in the wood itself. The dial is decorated with silver scrollwork and spandrels within and around a raised chapter ring. The clock operates for one month at each winding, has an alarm, indicates and strikes the hours, and will repeat the quarters. ”

“ A very pretty and uncommon object to copy is that of an old-fashioned clock, a veritable "my grandfather's clock," an upright tall eight-day clock that has a long chain and a heavy pendulum concealed within its tall case, and that shows a big square face with large figures printed on it. I will give you a few details about my cork clock, and I think you will make one and set it upon a bracket to be admired by all beholders. This miniature clock stands 71⁄2 inches high. ”

“ We find, say, that as compared with our watch time, one clock is two minutes fast, the next three minutes fast, the next one minute slow, and so on, two or three perhaps being as much as six or seven minutes fast, and two or three being as much as three or four minutes slow as compared with the watch. We note, however, that these wider ranges of difference occur only in the case of clocks presumably inferior—cheap clocks in small [Pg 68] shops, old clocks in buildings where manifestly the flight of time is not much noted, and so forth. ”

“ This unwillingness to adopt new styles is a feature in clockmaking in the provinces and in Scotland. The works of a clock are not unfrequently put by the maker into a case belonging to a period of cabinet work of some forty years previous. The clockmaker was an autocrat, and compelled the case-maker to follow old traditions in making cases. ”

“ Many clocks have a painted moon, which rises and sets each month. Miniature tall clocks were made at this time, corresponding in proportions to the tall clocks.
[360]
Illus. 349.—Miniature Clock
and Tall Clock, about 1800.
Illustration 349 shows a tall clock and a miniature one, both made about 1800, with painted faces. The tall clock has the name upon its face of Philip Holway, Falmouth. The case is mahogany, and the twisted pillars have brass bases and caps. The brass ornaments upon the top are rather unusual, a ball with three sprays of flowers. ”

“ The latter are made with such accuracy as to correct the time of other clocks, such as turret and church clocks, which are more exposed to the influence of the weather, and are necessarily made upon a coarser scale. In large mansions there is no handsomer or more necessary appointment for the hall or vestibule than a fine eight-day clock, 'to welcome the coming, speed the parting guest,' and to give the time of day to the entire household. ”

“ I will venture to say, that I can pick out three men who will take the brass in the sheet, press out and level under the drop, there cut the teeth, and make all of the wheels to five hundred clocks in one day; there are from eight to ten of these wheels in every clock, and in an eight-day clock more. This will look to some like a great story, but is one of the wonders of the clock business. If some of the parts of a clock were not made for almost nothing, they could not be sold so cheap when finished. ”

“ It is well that modern clocks have no wise saws and [Pg 32] mottoes telling of the unalterable hand of Time; "Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time," as Shakespeare says in King John.
Early Mechanism.—The problem for the old clockmakers who wished to supplant the primitive measurement of time by candle, by the hour-glass, and later by the sundial, was to produce a piece of mechanism which would in twenty-four hours, the prescribed period of day and night, indicate the flight of time hour by hour. ”

“ It is an interesting subject and one that never seems to exhaust itself. For all the wonders of my trade are not yet told. When, for instance, they put the clock on the Metropolitan Life Insurance building here in New York an undreamed-of pinnacle in clock construction was reached. There was a time when the clock on the London Houses of Parliament was the last word in the art—a veritable triumph of the horologe. Not only was it the largest timepiece in the world, but it seemed then the most miraculous. ”

“ But the regulating, as a matter of course, requires a regulator, or standard, of time, which is not always to be found in country places, nor even is the man in charge of clock-winding always in possession of a watch sufficiently accurate to convey the time from the regulator if there were one to the Church clock. Of late, Church clocks are made to go eight days, and so the labour of frequent winding has been saved, while at the same time by extra care in the [ 145] manufacture and fixing of a clock, there need be no necessity for frequently regulating it. ”

“ Testing Clocks.—The average amount by which a clock gains or loses is called its mean or average daily rate. A large daily rate of error is no proof that a clock is a bad one, for it might be completely removed by pendulum adjustment. What is required is that the daily rate shall be uniform, that is, that the clock shall not be gaining (or losing) more on one day than on another, or at one period of the same day than at another. In fig. 34 A B is a curve in which the abscissae represent intervals of time, the ordinates the number of seconds at any time by which the clock is wrong. ”

“ Complicated Watches are so called because besides the ordinary watch movement they possess other mechanism more or less complicated, by means of which they can indicate special portions of time,—as for instance the Chronograph, which marks on its dial the fifth of a second; the Quarter, and Half-Quarter, and Minute Repeaters, which furnish the time in the dark to within a minute, and are invaluable to invalids and blind persons; the Clock-Watch, which strikes the hours even in the pocket ”

“ The “dead beat” escapement is shown in Fig. 29, and is used in clocks of a high grade, generally with a seconds pendulum. It has no recoil as you can easily see that the surfaces O O on which the teeth fall, are portions of a circle around the center P. The beveled ends of these pallets are called the impulse surfaces, and a tooth is just giving the little push on the right-hand pallet. It is found in good railroad clocks, watch-makers' regulators and in many astronomical clocks. These terms are merely comparative, a “regulator” being a good clock and an “astronomical,” an extra good one. ”

“ We must commence with the known data that the earth revolves on its axis in twenty-four hours, or, to be more exact, in 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds. Astronomical clocks recording with scientific exactitude this phenomenon are on a plane apart, as are chronometers used by mariners. The astronomer uses a clock with numbers on its dial plate up to twenty-four; the common clock has only twelve hour numerals.
To come straight to modernity, it must be recognized that the measurement of time scientifically and the measurement of time according to civil law are two different things. ”

“ It was Bacon who wrote, a century before: "If a man be in sickness or pain, the time will seem longer without a clock or hour-glass than with it."
The question arises as to what particular kind of clock was at the bedside of Charles II that he should notice that it required winding. It may have been usual to wind it at that particular time every morning, being, as it undoubtedly was, a thirty-hour clock conveniently wound the same time every day. ”

“ As timekeepers they never can bear comparison with the later type with the long pendulum. They stand as examples of early clockmaking, with fine brass dials, with artistic appearance, simple and unpretentious, but lacking the real scientific application of further developed principles of a succeeding period.
A clock that could only be used as a bracket clock or a wall clock with weights beneath hardly filled the requirements of an age when domestic furniture demanded luxury and exquisite taste. ”

“ So we have a complete striking clock made by a man so poor that he had only his anvil, hammer and file. The weights are hung on cords as thick as an ordinary lead pencil and pass over pulleys having spikes set around them to prevent the cords from slipping. The weights descend 7 ft. in 12 hours, so they must be pulled up—not wound up—twice a day. The single hour hand is a work of art and is cut through like lace. Public clocks may still be seen in Europe with only one hand. ”

“ In instances where it is requisite that the clock face should be visible at a great distance, it is necessary that the dial should be made of semi-transparent glass and be illuminated by gas, which is usually turned as low as possible by day and turned on at night by means of the 24-hour wheel, as shown in the annexed illustration, the time for the turning on being regulated by the man in charge of the clock, who takes out or screws in the pins placed in the rim for that purpose. ”

“ She had been accorded the privilege of setting the clock on this stump, and I saw it shining in her hand as she paused for a moment to glance back at the circle of gentlemen who were awaiting her movements. The hands of the clock stood at five minutes to five, though I scarcely noted the fact at the time, for her eyes were on mine, and as she passed me she spoke:
“If he is not himself, he cannot [110] be trusted. Watch him carefully, and see that he does no mischief to himself or others. Be at his right hand, and stop him if he does not handle his pistol properly.” ”

“ Circumstantial evidence for the contraction of a moving rod is given by the Michelson-Morley and other experiments; there is no evidence for the definite retardation of clocks. There is in physics, no explicit definition of a clock. By consideration of a clock of hour-glass type it is shown that the ratio of time intervals recorded by stationary and moving clocks is different according as the interval is measured by the number, by the total weight or by the total volume of similar particles falling into a receptacle. ”

“ We do not dispense with clocks, because from time to time they go wrong, and tell untruly. A clock, organically considered, may be perfect, yet it may require regulating. Till that needful work is done, the moment-hand may mark the half-minute, when the minute-hand is at the quarter-past, and the hour hand is just at noon, and the quarter-bell strikes the three-quarters, and the hour-bell strikes four, while the sun-dial precisely tells two o’clock. ”

“ There is no one who can claim any credit of introducing American clocks into that country excepting myself. After I had opened a store in New York, we did, in a measure, stop these men from using my labels.
I have said that when I got up this one day brass clock in 1838, that the fourth chapter in the Yankee clock business had commenced. Perhaps Seth Thomas hated as bad as any one did to change his whole business of clock making for the second time, and adopt the same thing that I had introduced. ”

“ To the parish it is a source of some expense.
This Clock was restored and re-coloured at the general restoration of the Church in 1865–6, when the figure of Old Time, holding a scythe in his hand (as many of us will remember) , was removed. The Clock face and Clock hands do not look to the passer-by to be very large; but I find, on measurement, that the diameter of the Clock face is 10 ft., that the Roman letter numbers on it measure 11⁄2 ft., that the length of the large hand is 6 ft. 51⁄2 in., with a weight of 21 lbs., and that of the small hand 3 ft. 4 in., with a weight of 8 lbs. ”

“ Hence if the numbers one, two, and three had been used to denote any of the actual hours, confusion might have arisen between them and the preliminary strokes,—a confusion analogous to that which, in our own still imperfect method of striking the hour, leaves us in doubt whether the single stroke we hear be half-past twelve, one o'clock, half-past one, or any other of the numerous half-hours. Old-fashioned clocks, arranged on the system just described, are still sometimes exposed for sale in the curio-shops. ”

“ If we cut a screw with eighteen threads to the inch on the bottom of the pendulum rod, and put a circular nut on it, with the rim divided into sixty parts, then each turn through one division will raise or lower the bob by 1/1080th of an inch, and this first causes an alteration of time of the clock by one second in the day. ”

“ Since the summer and winter temperatures of a room may differ by as much as 50° F., the going of a clock may thus be affected by an error of 12 seconds a day. With a pendulum rod of brass, which has a coefficient of expansion of ·00001, a clock might gain one-third of a minute daily in winter as compared with its rate in summer. ”

“ The portable or table clock came into use early in 1600, and one of them shown in Figure 95 has the oval top to the dial which was not in use till the last part of the seventeenth century. These were the common house clocks of the period and were easily carried about. Some found their way to America, and as they were well made, with brass works, they are still able to give correct time. This style of clock was made for many years, and was manufactured in substantially the same way, late in the eighteenth century, by such famous makers as Isaac Fox and Joseph Rose. ”