Bought another ship's clock ...

[sundial]

Recently bought this brass ship's clock which has a brass Smiths movement. Has been serviced by my watchmaker and is keeping good time. Not particularly valuable but it has character and good honest WABI. Planning to make a wooden plinth for it before hanging it in my hall. Quite heavy at 3.35 Kilos and has a 9" dial with 10.5" caseback.







Clocks are good company and get "plenty of wall time" :D

Thanks for looking.

Cheers

dunk

[boddah]

Very nice, going to look great on the wall that one :)

[Dave E]

Lovely, I do like things like that.

[ock1f]

Go on give us a wrist shot.....you know you want to :lol:

Due to the weight, I would recommend putting it on one of Eddie's 22mm nato's

[Chris_in_the_UK]

Very nice Dunk :)

Crying out for a nice wood plinth.

[bongo]

...........This is another example of how maritime horological madness can creep up on you :lol:

I'm on my FOURTH 8 dayer now, two 50's Smiths brass same as yours with dagger hands and arabic numbers a pukka 30's silvered dial bulkhead job off an old yatcht, set in a hardwood surrond and a chrome Sestrel with roman numerals, ticks away like a pocket watch 8) Real household tools that satisfy the need for aeshtetic funcionallity :shock: What I'd really like is a U boat bulkhead job 8) but thats another st.......

[Not to mention the one I sold last year, one with a 'Radio Room' dial :cry: ]

Have fun with your plinth

...and make sure its screwed on to the wall securely, unlike one of mine which was put back on the dining room wall by the Father in law after he had done some decorating for me.......

2.am.......CCCRRRAAAAsshhhh :shock: took out a nice vase on the way down as well. Good job one of my mates is a clockmaker :D

[rfrazier]

Very good. Are you going to surround it with fancywork?

Best wishes,
Bob

[sundial]

Very good. Are you going to surround it with fancywork?

Best wishes,
Bob

I'm investigating woodturning courses at the moment and plan to turn two plinths - one for the latest clock and one for this Smiths Astral






It's years since I've done any woodturning and looking forward to trying my hand again especially as have some ancient, probably Cuban, mahogany in my loft. Nothing too fancy Bob, just wooden discs.

Cheers

dunk

[bongo]

It's years since I've done any woodturning and looking forward to trying my hand again especially as have some ancient, probably Cuban, mahogany in my loft. Nothing too fancy Bob, just wooden discs.

Nice. Less is more.

[Neil.C]

That Astrals a cracker. :D

Any significance to the coloured segments Dunk?

[Banjo]

Nice I like it, put some pics up when it is up on the wall.

[sundial]

That Astrals a cracker. :D

Any significance to the coloured segments Dunk?

Yes ... following was advised by forum member vaizki ... "The red triangles are "radio silence" minutes (3 minutes at 15/45min past the hour) and the green ones (added later) are the times to monitor for distress signals on another band. The red 4 second bars around the whole dial are used to time an accurate emergency signal"

Cheers

dunk

[rfrazier]

That Astrals a cracker. :D

Any significance to the coloured segments Dunk?

Yes ... following was advised by forum member vaizki ... "The red triangles are "radio silence" minutes (3 minutes at 15/45min past the hour) and the green ones (added later) are the times to monitor for distress signals on another band. The red 4 second bars around the whole dial are used to time an accurate emergency signal"

Cheers

dunk

The red was for CW (morse code) on 500kHz. The green was for voice on 2182kHz. We had such a clock. It was nifty to hear all go silent. The folks on the voice side of things were never as disciplined as the CW operators. In any case, the idea was to establish contact on the calling frequency (500 or 2182) and shift to a working frequency. Again, on the CW side, folks were pretty good about this. Not so on the voice side. Even when you got a distress signal, you tried to shift to a working frequency (there could be more than one distress at a time). It depended on the quality of the signal and the nature of the emergency. Generally, it was a good idea to establish location, type of distress and SOBs (souls on board) before thinking of shifting. The really cool operators on the vessel in distress would call an SOS giving position, etc., then as soon as communications were established, would suggest a CG working frequency for further communications.


Best wishes,
Bob

PS Inshore uses CH16 (156.8 MHz). No discipline there at all.
RLF

[Neil.C]

Thanks for enlightening me Gents. :)

[Galea]

Nice clock ... any chance of a movement shot? My Smiths all have either subsidiary seconds at 12 or else centre seconds.

[A.Pottinger]

Tremedous clocks gents - it's amazing how many dial designs there are and were.

Br
AP.

[sundial]

Nice clock ... any chance of a movement shot? My Smiths all have either subsidiary seconds at 12 or else centre seconds.

Some of mine (plus barometers):

Mine have the Smiths Astral and Smiths Empire movements ... I don't have time today to take the cases apart ... the Empire clock movement is fairly ordinary looking but reliable. The Astral movement is probably better quality.

Cheers

dunk

[angeche]

Very interesting, guys. I almost missed it!

[Jeroen]

Bob's explanation pretty much covers it all;

Early clocks just had the red bands (morse signals) it took some development (equipment e.a.) before speech signal could cover any real distance and could be understood and thus used for distress signals.

here's some additional info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_kHz