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Thread: Little story about a lovely old thing

  1. #1
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Little story about a lovely old thing

    Hi all

    I got an interesting phone call the other day. My wife’s uncle got in touch as he knows I like anything old and “horology related”. He was having an urgent and inevitable clear-out, due to the imminent sale of his garage in London. He said amongst all the stuff there were a few old clocks, and asked whether I would like to have them as otherwise he would getting rid of them.

    His late wife was swiss, and he spent most of his life in Switzerland. By that point my curiosity was suitably stimulated, I couldn’t help but think he would be the kind to own an Atmos clock!

    Of course I said I would take a look, not really knowing what to expect. I am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to things which have a meaning to me or my family: old objects, letters, photos, etc… I could not say no!

    The items made their way to the south coast courtesy of the mother in law who was helping with the clear-out. Cutting a long story short, amongst the very diverse cargo, (mainly old tat) was this charming little thing:





    I initially thought it was some sort of desk calendar (it was set on 4-11). However, after rotating the setting lever , it turned out to my surprise that the bottom number goes beyond 12, you guessed it up to 59, so it is actually a clock!

    The movement is marked Junghans, so not quite an atmos, but I cannot complain! A bit of research on the internet taught me that it is called a Flip Ticket Plato Clock. According to my very brief investigations this could be close to or around 100 years old. Not hugely valuable, but arguably fairly rare, certainly unusual. This is pretty irrelevant to me as this clock has already got a place in my heart!



    It is not running currently, but I plan to get it serviced and up and running again.

    What I can see of the movement looks fairly basic, and it looks pretty clean given that it has been sitting in storage for many decades. With a bit of luck it might just need a good clean.

    I will offer it back to my wife’s uncle if we can get it to work, but I sincerely hope he will tell me to keep it! I find it so cool, and it does look great in our lounge, a lovely little piece of family history.

    I hope you find this interesting…. Although not watch related as such I thought I would share.
    Last edited by .olli.; 23rd June 2016 at 23:14.

  2. #2
    Craftsman
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    Great story, thanks for sharing. Hopefully you'll get to keep it. It's difficult to get a sense of scale from your pics, how big is it?

  3. #3
    Grand Master SimonK's Avatar
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    As you say, a lovely thing - I'd certainly have it on my desk.

  4. #4
    Master doug darter's Avatar
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    A lovely old mechanical clock, and certainly rare and unusual. I hope you can get it running.

  5. #5
    Quite cool, actually.
    Hope you can get it sorted.

  6. #6
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gary1064 View Post
    Great story, thanks for sharing. Hopefully you'll get to keep it. It's difficult to get a sense of scale from your pics, how big is it?
    It's about 15cm tall

  7. #7
    That is lovely! HAs a real 'steampunk' feel about it, if that is your thing. Either way I like it a lot. Certainly worth getting up and running.

  8. #8
    Master alfat33's Avatar
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    Great to see, really interesting and it seems to have survived in good shape.

  9. #9
    Master Strnglwhank's Avatar
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    Please keep us all updated on how you get on with this project. Great story & a wonderful item I would love to own.

  10. #10
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    I will post a little video if I get it running again!

  11. #11
    Grand Master Carlton-Browne's Avatar
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    That's a fantastic looking thing - it's be interesting to see what kind of noise it makes when in operation. I can't help thinking that it "striking" the hour will sound like a major paltform change in Waterloo in the good old days.

  12. #12
    Master
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    I've always fancied one of those, good luck in getting it running.

  13. #13
    Grand Master Foxy100's Avatar
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    That's excellent!
    "A man of little significance"

  14. #14
    Master
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    Btw, I meant to say if you want some professional help with that I have been impressed with Allnutt & Son in Midhurst. They have two WOSTEP trained watchmakers including the owner and are real enthusiasts. I've only had one watch serviced there but was pleased with the results. They have a marvellous 19thC. regulator clock in the showroom and the owner and I chatted at length about how it worked and his efforts to achieve the best possible accuracy. I think at that point he had it running at about 1 second/month.

  15. #15
    I like that, despite its age it looks quite contemporary.

    Well worth the effort to get it running.

  16. #16
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeremy67 View Post
    Btw, I meant to say if you want some professional help with that I have been impressed with Allnutt & Son in Midhurst. They have two WOSTEP trained watchmakers including the owner and are real enthusiasts. I've only had one watch serviced there but was pleased with the results. They have a marvellous 19thC. regulator clock in the showroom and the owner and I chatted at length about how it worked and his efforts to achieve the best possible accuracy. I think at that point he had it running at about 1 second/month.
    Thanks Jeremy!

  17. #17
    Master village's Avatar
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    Tres bien...... It would be great to see that up and running.

  18. #18
    I agree with the folks above, it is a delightful thing. The" 4 o' clock" is a reminder of past times to my mind.

  19. #19
    Journeyman
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    Pretty interesting!

  20. #20
    Apprentice
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    Good luck!

  21. #21
    Grand Master Velorum's Avatar
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    I agree, thats a really interesting thing

    Hope you manage to get it going again

  22. #22
    That is a truly wondrous thing, Olli.

    I would second the idea of taking it to Geoff at Allnutts. Be prepared to spend some time there - he enjoys a chat!

  23. #23
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Thank you very much for the comments and advice gents!

  24. #24
    Journeyman
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    Fantastic. Hope you get it running and look forward to the update if you do.

  25. #25
    Master
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    Little story about a lovely old thing

    Life sometimes has some lovely ways to raise cheer, doesn't it. Good luck with getting it running again and - if possible - do post us a video if you do! I for one would love to see it run.
    Last edited by S Works; 27th June 2016 at 11:35.

  26. #26
    Master WatchIng's Avatar
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    Cool! Just what MB&F might have built if they built clocks 100 years ago!

  27. #27
    Journeyman
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    That is so cool. Is it bad that i went onto ebay looking for one straight away?
    I hope you get it back purring soon

  28. #28
    Cool antique clock never seen one of those and I collect vintage clocks plus watches. Find the right clock repair guy I have a Waterbury Calendar no.40 clock made in the 1800's with time, date, month, and day of the week like Thursday or Friday took a few clockmakers over the years until one got it to work right.

  29. #29
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    An update (with video) - It is ticking!

    Where is the “holy thread resurrection batman” meme when you need it?


    Unfortunately the pics I included in the original thread have been held to ransom by Photobucket. Here is a photo of the clock in question to jog your memory. It is a lovely old flip ticket plato clock by Junghans.





    I promised an update if I could get this clock going. In the end I ended up having a go at restoring it myself. As you some of you know, I recently re-trained to follow a career in horology. I predominantly work on watches, but having joined a local clock repair evening course this was a great little project to get my teeth into.

    These are photos of the movement once out of the clock:








    There was quite a lot wrong with the movement. The mainspring was broken, and with no suitable replacement available I had to make do. Thankfully the spring split at the end where it hooks onto the barrel wall, so I just cut a small strip of the spring, annealed the new extremity to reduce the hardness, and punched a new hole so that the mainspring can hook onto the barrel wall again.

    This is a pic of the spring after heat treatment:




    Some of the pivot holes were in very poor condition. There are no jewelled holes on this clock, it is a very basic movement, so some of the holes in the brass plates had worn to an olive shape. See example below:




    I ended up rebushing 6 pivot holes.

    Finally the hairspring required a little bit of reshaping.

    With all this done and after ultrasonic clean of the parts, the clock was ready to be reassembled:




    And… I am pleased to report it is ticking again, well and reliably! Timekeeping is as good as I am going to get on this kind of movement (it is a pin pallet escapement, so not really build for precision timekeeping!)

    As promised, here is a link to a video of the quirky little clock in action, I posted the video on my Instagram account. Don’t blink or you will miss it! If you turn the sound up on your device you may even be able to hear it ticking, it is quite loud.

    Link To Video


    I hope this made interesting reading and viewing!
    Last edited by .olli.; 9th December 2017 at 21:56.

  30. #30
    Master unclealec's Avatar
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    Congrats on your acheivements with this interesting little piece.
    I am needing instruction on how to tell the time using it; is it binary?

  31. #31
    Grand Master Foxy100's Avatar
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    That's great!
    "A man of little significance"

  32. #32
    Master unclealec's Avatar
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    I think I now understand. It's a very short video clip, right?

  33. #33
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by unclealec View Post
    Congrats on your acheivements with this interesting little piece.
    I am needing instruction on how to tell the time using it; is it binary?
    It is like a digital clock, hours is the top number, minutes bottom number.

  34. #34
    Master village's Avatar
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    Cool 😎

  35. #35
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by unclealec View Post
    I think I now understand. It's a very short video clip, right?
    Yes it was filmed in real time, only a couple of seconds, the video shows the time change from 5:10 to 5:11.
    I could look at it all day!

  36. #36
    Master Thewatchbloke's Avatar
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    Nice one Olli, what a lovely little clock

  37. #37
    Grand Master seikopath's Avatar
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    Absolutely gorgeous Oli. You must be well chuffed with that. When does it date from?
    Good luck everybody. Have a good one.

  38. #38
    Master .olli.'s Avatar
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    Thank you all for kind comments!

    I could not date it accurately unfortunately, it was likely made in the early 1900's according to what I could find on the net.

  39. #39
    Master bobbee's Avatar
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    That is an amazing bit of kit, thanks for updating this Olli.
    Sometimes the simplest of movements give the most reward.

  40. #40
    Master
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    That looks fantastic. I’d love one of those.

  41. #41
    Master ed335d's Avatar
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    Good work Olli, lovely to see something bought back to life

  42. #42
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    I'd love to be able to see it....!

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