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Merritt’s Antiques has a new 3/4 inch by 0.0165 inch by 96 inch mainspring for American clocks. It is part no. P-1956, currently selling for $7.00 each individually (quantity discounts are available). It is a higher quality, American made version of their P-1496 that I have blogged about earlier.

I bought one of these springs to test. The quality appears to be excellent. The thickness measured as specified, 0.0165 inches. It is tempered to a nice uniform blue, and is well finished with a nicely made, neatly attached loop end.

It seems to have plenty of power, as the coils open way up when the spring is first uncoiled. It may be too strong for some clocks.

Tomorrow I am going to install it in an Ansonia long drop octagon clock with early type movement.

Many American antique clocks with open (not in a barrel) mainsprings use a “standard” mainspring of 3/4″ wide and approximately 18 thousands of an inch thick. There is a lot of variation in these springs between manufacturers, and across clocks made by the same manufacturer. I will comment more on these variations later.

In general, these clocks will work with thinner mainsprings if the pivots are polished and the necessary bushings installed properly. Also, some of these clocks show severe wear to the mainwheel teeth. Installing a thinner mainspring can reduce future wear.

Merritt’s Antiques has a mainspring specified as 3/4″ x .0165″ x 96″, part number P1496. Some of the springs in the first batch I received were about .0155 inches thick. They provide plenty of power for many 8-day American antique clocks, and have worked perfectly in the following applications so far:

• Ingraham oak kitchen clock, ca. 1880, for both time and strike.
• Ansonia oak kitchen clock, 4 pillar movement, strike side (this spring is also fine for the time side, as the original mainsprings are about the same thickness, in fact, even thinner springs would work).
• Waterbury oak kitchen clock steel plates, brass bushed, time and strike springs (this movement originally had thin mainsprings).
• Ansonia oak kitchen clock, 5 3/4 inch tall 5 pillar movement, time and strike springs
• Ingraham time only store regulator, deadbeat escapement, clock runs 15 days on one winding.

The mainsprings in this batch can be identified by being packaged in red, yellow and orange boxes.

In the Waterbury clock mentioned above (my job no. 4369), the new strike mainspring broke in September 2007. I replaced it with the same type of spring Sept. 28, 2007 (0.0155 inch thick).

A recent repair job on a Kundo oval base 400 day clock reminded me that the upper suspension block must fit properly in the saddle.

I cleaned the movement and replaced the suspension spring. It did not need any pivot polishing. After assembly, the clock ran, but the pendulum made a small rotation even when fully wound (about 3/4 of a turn with small overswing or supplementary arc).

The upper suspension block had some play in the direction of rotation of the pendulum, causing energy loss. I closed the slot in the saddle slightly, just enough to remove the play, but still allowing the block to pivot freely about the suspension holding screw. The swing of the pendulum increased to about one full turn. Now I am satisfied that this clock will run well.

About 1880, a fine Ansonia Regulator A, time only with calendar, was purchased for an office. The clock was enjoyed by many descendants of the original owner. It was well maintained, and always gave good service. In the late 1990’s, the clock was taken to a repair shop, and the repairman said he could not fix it! So he installed a chiming battery operated movement! The clock was passed down one generation, and the present owner was horrified at the indignity inflicted upon the clock. She asked me if I could find an original movement to install. I said I would try, but that it would take some looking, as the clock needs an earlier type of movement than is commonly seen.

After searching eBay for four weeks, I saw the exact movement we needed. It even had the original brass calendar hand and the hour hand. I bought it, and found a source for a good reproduction pendulum. A colleague supplied an original type minute hand to me. We had the case touched up, and an old glass painted with “Regulator A”.

I installed a Merritt’s Antiques P-1956 mainspring, as described in this post. This spring is 3/4 inch wide, 0.0165 inch thick, and 96 inches long. It is of excellent quality, and provides the correct amount of power.

1) Early Golden Hour clocks (made around 1953 and 1954) don’t use nylon pads to support the rotating gear ring. Instead, they have three slightly raised metal areas. When these wear down, the friction increases and can cause the clock to be unreliable. On 3-31-08 I repaired one by applying several pieces of black plastic electrical tape near the raised metal areas. Time will tell how long this repair lasts.

2) The same job as above had a groove worn in the metal retaining ring, causing the the gear ring to bind in places. I used abrasive paper to remove the grove. Now the gear ring turns much more smoothly.

(Job 4583 3/31/08)

I overhauled the movement of this clock recently. One of the teeth on the escape wheel was too short, so I inserted a new tooth.

Both mainsprings are original Seth Thomas mainsprings that measure 0.0165 inch thick. The strike speed is adequate, but I wouldn’t want the mainspring to be much weaker. The pendulum takes a fantastic swing, about three times the escape arc. The time mainspring could be quite a bit weaker and still have plenty of power.

This clock appears similar to the College Series “New York” with a different base and glass. It is also very similar to one of the “Capitol” series with a different base and glass.

My job 4526.

Lately several people told me me that their 400 day anniversary clock was “wound too tight”, and that they tried to fix it by unwinding the spring! Trying to unwind the spring is DANGEROUS (unless you are experienced at clock repair and have the proper let-down key). If you try to unwind the spring, YOU MAY INJURE YOUR HAND OR FINGERS, and damage the clock as well. Don’t try it! Also, merely unwinding the spring will NOT fix the clock’s problems.

When a clock that is wound up all the way will not work, it needs to be repaired. The repair needed can range from a simple adjustment such as putting the clock in beat; up to an overhaul, in which the movement needs to be taken completely apart, cleaned, pivots polished, and any other repair work carried out. 400 day anniversary clocks seldom need to have bushings installed, but quite often, Schatz clocks from the 1950’s need a few pivots polished.

I offer repair service for Kundo and Schatz 400 day clocks and Schatz 1000 day clocks.

I recently overhauled this cuckoo clock. The movement was very dirty and someone had damaged the fan fly and enlarged its pivot holes to about 1/8 inch! The slideshow below shows the repair process.

I had to plug the enlarged pivot hole, use the depthing tool to establish the correct center distance, and  drill a new hole. Also, the fan fly had been damaged and a brass strip needed to be attached so that the fly fit properly on the arbor.