German Trapezoid Wall Clock, 1960s

This German chiming wall clock was made about the 1950s or 1960s. There is no maker’s name on the dial or the movement. The back of the movement is labeled:

Western Germany

35

The trapezoidal case is 19 3/4 inches tall and 12 5/8 inches wide. The dial’s minute track is 6 3/4 inches.

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Repair job 5557. I polished the pivots and installed 6 bushings. The chime mainspring broke as I was winding it in the mainspring winder. I’m glad it broke then, instead of while in the clock (which may have damaged some gear teeth). The chime mainspring is unusually long (about 70 inches) and is 25.9 mm wide and 0.015 inch thick. I couldn’t locate a replacement in my parts catalogs, so I repaired the inner end of the spring (it had broken about 5 inches from the inner end). The break was caused by the barrel arbor hook being too long, causing stress on the spring when fully wound. I shortened all 3 arbor hooks to reduce the chances of future mainspring breakage.

The amount of hammer lift is adjustable by rotating the lower right movement pillar. When first set up, the strike stalled after 7 days. The hammers lifted 7/8 inch during chiming and 1 inch duriing striking. I reduced the lift to 9/16 inch for chiming and 11/16 inch for striking.


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