Seeking the collective wisdom of the learned folk of TZUK.
I’ve a grandfather clock in my living room. It’s an 8 day, with no complications other than a date shown on a subdial at 6 o’clock.
It’s been running fine for nearly 4 years. However in the past weeks I forgot to wind it and it stopped (I don’t usually forget). When I rewound it I can’t get the thing working.
It runs fine for 15 to 30 minutes then stops.
I thought maybe I’d wound it too vigorously and got the cable badly wound, so Icompletely unwound the weight (there is a quick release on the power wheel) and wound it back gently ensuring that the cable was winding in the correct channels in the wheel. But the problem didn’t go away. Same thing.
Fearing cobwebs or a dead spider somewhere I gave the mechanism a quick shot with compressed air in the hope that it might solve the issue. But again nothing.
What could be making it stop??
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Assuming the clock is in beat, (no reason to think it has changed from the last time it was running), my thoughts would be dried/sticky oil, whilst the clock was running the oil was kept 'moving' but now it has been stationary for a while it can set a bit, and if the clock is in a cooler hallway that won't help the oils mobility.
Those are my thoughts, and partly from experience too.
R
I know that it was last serviced some 20 years ago. I can’t see any evidence of any oil in the movement at all. But I had similar thoughts about sticky oils being the culprit.
I’ve been buggering about with it all morning and, touch wood, it seems to have been running for the past 2 hours maybe. But why is a mystery.
It keeps great time. Maybe once every 3 to 4 weeks I might adjust the time by a couple of minutes.
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I don’t think I did answer the question. I still don’t know why it stopped working or why it’s now working (seemingly)Originally Posted by henk
Why would it dork for 15 mins then stop?
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