Clockmaker

“ The whole skill of the clockmaker is devoted to the object of giving stability to the going of the clock for the period, whether long or short, during which it is to go. To gain this object, he contrives a pendulum by which the disturbances of the temperature may be compensated. He cannot prevent the expansion of metals, but he can so balance, by the expansion of different metals, the disturbances produced, that the result is invariable motion. This is precisely what is done in the solar system. ”

“ Now you can understand, I guess, why I sent Bailey away, telling him I should have to dream over this bracket clock. Two hundred years is a long time and methods have changed greatly since then. Therefore in order to repair such a product, I shall have to think myself back into the year 1700 and work in the fashion Richard Parsons did; otherwise I cannot successfully take up his handiwork. A clockmaker has to have imagination, you see. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is only a fancy, but, as no design comes by accident, it is very probable that such was the idea of the old dial engraver.
The study of hands is exceptionally interesting; they run through a regular series of styles, as varied as the ornamentation of the cases. Some of the designs are of exquisite balance as specimens of delicate metal-work, in which the English have always been proficient. Their character can be gauged by the expert clockmaker or connoisseur to such a nicety that it can be seen at once if the clock has its original hands or not. ”

“ The gnarled figure of the walnut was essentially a proper decoration to apply to the clock-case.
The long-case clock had not only become acclimatized, but it had become thoroughly English. The simplicity of its construction, and its proud record as a perfect timekeeper, gave it the supremacy over all other clocks. English clockmakers, with the fine sense of practical utility which governed their employment of mechanism, had reached a point when further inventions became more of scientific use than popular. The "grandfather" clock has no equal within its limits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet clockmakers (artifices horologiorum) are trying to make a wheel (circulum) which will make one complete revolution for every one of the equinoctial circle, but they cannot quite perfect their work. But if they could, it would be a really accurate clock (horologium verax valde) and worth more than an astrolabe or other astronomical instrument for reckoning the hours, if one knew how to do this according to the method aforesaid. The method of making such a clock would be this, that a man make a disc (circulum) of uniform weight in every part so far as could possibly be done. ”

“ Engraver, painter, gilder, glass-stainer, blacksmith, gunsmith, bell-founder; maker of sundials, harpsichords, violins, organs—he could do everything. But his great achievement was in the art of clockmaking, producing a curious astronomical and geographical machine which represented the motions of the earth, moon, stars, &c. He anticipated the invention of the spinning-jenny, but destroyed his machine lest it should decrease labour and take bread from the mouths of the poor. Another noted clockmaker was John Whitehurst, [p. 129] Fellow of the Royal Society, born at Congleton in 1713. ”

“ The sixteenth century is remarkable for the great advance by Italian, by Nuremberg, and by Augsburg clockmakers. Striking and alarum clocks, and intricate mechanism showing phases of the moon, the year, the day of the month, and the festivals of the Church, were produced. In the sixteenth century portable clocks received further attention in regard to minute mechanism, resulting in what we now know as the watch. ”

“ In the first place, we have to consider the axle which carries the minute hand, and which turns124 round once in each hour. This is usually made of a piece of steel about one-sixth of an inch in diameter. Clockmakers usually call an axle an “arbor,” or “tree,” whence our word axletree.
This “arbor” is turned in the lathe, so as to have pivots on each end, fitted into holes in the clock plates, that is to say, the flat pieces of brass that serve as the body of the clock. The adjoining diagram shows S T the clock faces, and C, the arbor of the minute hand. ”

“ Noah Pomeroy of Bristol, is also engaged in making pendulum movements for other parties. I should, however, mention Ireneus Atkins, of Bristol, who is making a first-rate thirty-day brass clock, and I am told there is no better one for time in the country. The movement for this kind of clock was invented by Joseph Ives, who has spent most of his time for the last twenty-five years in improving on springs and escapements for clocks, and who has done a great deal for the advancement of this business. Mr. Atkins, who is making this thirty-day time-piece, is an excellent man to deal with. ”

“ Graham, however, concentrated most of his skill on watches while Tompion put the major part of his talent into long-case clocks which were unrivaled. For, by this time, with the gradual development and improvement of clock machinery, it was possible to make grandfather, or long-case, clocks that kept excellent time. The defects of the old wheel escapement of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries were, as I told you, remedied in part by the invention of the fusee, a device for equalizing the movement. ”

“ Why, I never dreamed there was so much to clockmaking!" gasped the astonished Christopher.
"Oh, the making of a finely adjusted, close-running clock is far more of a science than a trade, laddie. It isn't just making a lot of wheels that will turn, hands that will point, or a mechanism that will tick—wonderful as all that is," asserted McPhearson.
"I don't believe most persons realize it isn't."
"Those who dip below the surface and are better informed know the truth; as for the others—we must not expect too much of a hurrying world, son. ”

“ The watchman’s or tell-tale clock, used when it is desired to make sure of a watchman being on the spot and awake all the night, is a clock with a set of spikes, generally 48 or 96, sticking out all round the dial, and a handle somewhere in the case, by pulling which one of the spikes which is opposite to it, or to some lever connected with it is pressed in. This wheel of spikes is carried round with the hour-hand, which in these clocks is generally a twenty-four hour one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To whom the high honour belongs of inventing the clock is, to use a not unknown phrase, 'lost in the mists of antiquity.' All the ancients who were reported as skilful in mechanics seem to have obtained a modicum of credit as clock-inventors. Archimedes and Posidonius before, the Christian era, Boëthius in the 5th century, Pacificus about the middle of the 9th, Gerbert at the end of the 10th, Wallingford near the beginning of the 14th, and Dondi at the end of the 14th, have each in their turn been asserted to be the inventors of the clock. ”

“ This I consider a perfect striking clock. It is a large movement of fine workmanship and was made in the department of the Jura, France. When a clock or watch only repeats, I consider the old “five-minute repeater” the best. I used this method in a clock which, on pulling the cord, strikes the hour on a large bell and if that is all it strikes, then it is less than five minutes past. If more than five minutes past it follows the hour by one blow on a small bell for every five minutes. ”

“ Let us suppose the clock to be driven by a weight or a spring in the ordinary way; every day or every week the weight or spring will require to be wound up. In time-pieces of a new variety the period during which no attention whatever is needed is lengthened to a year. The Self-winding Clock Company, of Brooklyn, New York, makes a clock which is driven by a fine spring, much like a common clock; that spring every hour is automatically wound up by a tiny electric motor connected with a small battery in the clock case. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many kinds of cheaper springs had been tried without success, till a superior steel spring was invented in the United States, and the springs thus produced [Pg 217] have for many years been sold at a price compatible with cheap clocks.
The wooden pendulum covered with gold leaf, which is one of the characteristics of a regulator clock, was invented by Silas B. Terry, a son of Eli. America has long taken a leading place in the making of clocks, and that desire to have the biggest and best which is characteristic of the youngest nation has influenced clockmaking. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence the future of the clock seems to be a series of master-clocks, electrically driven, and synchronized one with another, in various parts of a city, from each of which a number of dials in the vicinity are driven. Electrical synchronization was worked out by Louis Bréguet and others, and a successful system was perfected in England by J. A. Lund. The leading principle of the best systems is at each hour to cause a pair of fingers or some equivalent device to close upon the minute hand and put it exactly to the hour. ”

“ The Electric Clock is an invention of our own time. An ordinary clock consists essentially of a series of wheels acting on each other, and carrying round, as they revolve, the hands which mark the seconds, minutes, and hours. The wheels are moved by the falling of a weight, or the unwinding of a spring; and the rate at which they revolve is determined by the length of a pendulum made to oscillate by the wheels. In electric or (as they should rather be called) electro-magnetic clocks, there are neither weights nor springs; so that they never run down, and never require to be wound up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One weak place in the clock is the escapement wheel. The points soon wear down, thereby producing a greater escapement and pendulum movement, resulting in an increased strain and wear of the clock. If the tips of the teeth on the wheel are bent up slightly with a pair of pliers, the swing of the pendulum will be reduced, thereby increasing the life of the clock. Many of the grandfather's clocks can be put in order in this manner so as to serve as a timepiece as well as a cherished ornament.—Contributed by C. F. Spaulding. ”