Gilbert “Black” Kitchen Shelf Clock

This clock was made in the mid to late 1880s or early 1890s. The movement bears patent dates of 1879 and 1884.  This case originally had a black finish, and it appears to have been overpainted in black later. The clock’s dimensions are height 19 3/4 inches, width 13 7/16 inches, and the dial has a 5 inch diameter time track.

The movement has the unusual feature of a centrifugal strike speed governor instead of a fan fly. The governor was patented February 26, 1884.

The hands are the original Gilbert style Maltese. Note the wide part at the hub. The paper dial has been replaced.

The mainsprings are original “W. Barnes” mainsprings, and are fairly smooth. The time spring is 0.017 – 0.018 inches thick, and the strike spring is 0.018 inched thick. I kept the original springs in the clock, but if they needed replacing, 0.0165 inch thick springs should be used. There was no reason to replace these springs, as they had worked fine for over 100 years, showed no signs of damage, and were not causing excessive wear to the mainwheel teeth.

Repair work included replacing the wires on 4 pinions (T2, S4, T4, S2) and reversing the wires on T3 and S3. The click rivets were replaced, and the wear polished out of the pallet faces.

See more photos.

Repair job 5337.


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