Member postings for johnp10

Hello Russell,

How`s progress on the Wilding regulator? Have you finished it yet?

If so, it would be interesting to know what driving weight is required and what standard

of time keeping has been achieved. As previously stated mine is fitted with ball bearings to the winding drum

and the front bearing of the hour shaft. all the other bearings are jewels and it runs on 3.4 lb driving weight

and keeps time to about a couple of seconds a week.

Your clock looks very nice in your posted `photo.

Kind regards.

John Parslow.

I had exactly the same problem when using the Google browser.

Diane Carney suggested trying Firefox browser and I have had no trouble since.

Thanks Diane.

John Parslow

Hello Jay,

May I suggest a piece of one and a half thick kitchen work-top .

about 4ft long as a load spreader if the lathe has to be mounted other than on a solid floor.

John Parslow.

Regarding the negative coefficient of expansion of invar, one could make the pendulum partly of invar and partly of brass. Without knowing the coefficient of expansion of either material it would be a case of trial and error to find the correct length of brass to compensate for the invar negative coefficient of expansion.

John Parslow.

Some time ago Mr. Russell Eberhardt posted that he intended to build the month going version of the John Wilding regulator but fitted with ball bearings at all pivot points and invited comment from anyone who had built this clock.

In 2002 I built the eight day going version of this clock as described in Mr. Wildings book except for the maintaining power spring (q.v.) I had no problems building this clock and it kept time to two or three seconds a week on a 5lb driving weight. At a later date I added jewels to all pivots except for the hour hand arbor ,as this carries no load, and the winding barrel arbor and front pivot of the centre arbor as no jewels were available for these points. At the same time I replaced the solid escape anchor with the Vulliamy type.These modifications enabled the driving weight to be reduced to 4lb with the same time keeping.

A couple of years later I built the same clock for a friend but this time with an escapement anchor spanning seven and a half teeth as I had read in the literature that a `Square` escapement spanning seven teeth was the optimum form of the dead beat escapement. This clock gave the same performance but required a six lb driving weight.

After reading the discussion of Mr. Eberhardts proposal I fitted ball bearings to the winding barrel arbor and the front pivot of the centre arbor.. These are flanged shielded bearings. The winding barrel arbor bearings were 0.5" o/d and 0.25" i/d and a light push fit in the frame plates and retained with collars and 10 B.A screws and the centre arbor bearing was 6mm o/d and 3mm i/d and made a light press fit in the frame plate I first tried the ball bearings as supplied and then with the grease flushed out but could detect no difference in the pendulum swing. I then ran a drop of clock oil into each bearing as an anti-corrosion measure.These modifications enabled the driving weight to be reduced to three and a half lb.and the time keeping was unaffected.

May I offer the followings comments on the month going version for consideration.

Ball bearings are cheap and easy to fit. The jewels in my clock were imported from `The Swiss Jewel Company` in the U.S.A who have a minimum `shipping` order of 100$ which makes the price prohibitive unless more than one clock is being built, as in my case. The maintaining power spring in my clock is gauge plate 18 s.w.g.(0.048) thick and 0.070 wide. As the stiffness of this spring increases as the cube of its width it would not need to be much wider to suit the increased weight needed to drive the month going version and would be much simpler than Mr. Wildings bolt and shutter arrangement. The pin at the top of the great wheel in the photo limits the relative turning of the maintaining ratchet to the great wheel to four teeth, which is adequate and avoids over-stressing the spring.

For anyone building the clock from scratch, cutting the winding barrel right handed would cause the driving weight to move away from the pendulum as the weight descends as originally intended and may permit the fitting of some sort of stop-work which is absent form the present design.

I hope that these comments are helpful to any future constructors of this regulator.

John Parslow

There is a forum on clock making in the` Model Engineer` website. Click on `View all topics` and then on `Clocks`

Johnp10

Hello Gents,

When I first built my skeleton clock in the mid to late nineties, a number of experienced clock-makers were advocating the use of a pinion cutter 1/2 a module less than the wheel with which it is to be meshed but cut on the correct diameter of pinion blank for the full module. In this case a 0,55 mod cutter on a 0.6 mod pinion blank.

I tried this system and found that, correctly meshed, this produced a very free running wheel train.

I then crossed my fingers and tried cutting a 12 leaf pinion whih a 0.55 mod 8 leaf cutter, this again ran without any problems.

The two skeleton clocks made by myself and one by a friend have been working satisfactorily for some 15 years so I adopted this principle in my bracket clock design, again with no problems.

Experienced clockmakers can sense when pinion and wheel pairs are correctly meshed but, being a novice, I set a wheel and pinion in the simple depth tool until the tips of pinion leaf and wheel tooth just `brushed` together and then reduced the centre distance by the sum of the addenda of wheel and pinion. This worked fine.

I hope that this experience helps othersand would like to thaks those who have already commented on this topic.

John Parslow

On Sunday 7th July I received an email message requesting clarification on the meshing of 0.55 mod pinions whith 0.6 mod wheels in my bracket clock design.

Sadly, his message disappeared from my laptop before I could respond and I was unable to retrieve it.

If the gentleman reads this note, will he kindly repeat his message to [email protected], when I will endeavour to answer it.

John Parslow.

Hello Stub mandrel, Neil,

Thank you for your kind comment. This was my second attemp at clock making and its gratifying that so many constructors have taken it up.

John Parslow

Hello Mr. Williams,

If you would to build my skeketon clocn as referred to by Stub mandrel and Harold Hall you could could contact either Mr Ian Cobb E-mail [email protected] who can supply a construction manual plus materials to manufacture the clock or myself E-mail johnp10@virginmedia. Tel. 0115 9526386. I also can supply a copy of the manual.

Best of luck with yoour project.

John Parslow

When I was at school during the war we used glacial acetic acid to produce clear joints.

Most of the other chemicals were unobtainable then.

It should capillery into the crack easily.

John.

Hello Morgens,

Yes, That is correct.

John.

Hello Mogens,

Yes, that is correct.

Regards.

John.

Hello Mogens.

Thank you for your query.

The mainspring that you require is available from Meadows & Passmore, Tel 01273 421321.

Part number 0321 204015

Dimensions, 20 x 45 x 45.

This was originally in stainless steel but a look today on M & P website seemed to indicate that is now only available in clock grade steel. This should be satisfactory.

Hope that this helps.

Regards.

John Parslow.

Hello Russell.

I agree with the comments from Springbok & Harold Hall. Things are looking very good. Well done.

I never got the hang of using a pivot burnisher myself so used 1600 grade abrasive paper and polished until the abrasive was really shiny and then inverted the paper and coated it with `Autosol` metal polish then ran the lathe at full speed to polish the pivot to a high shine.

`Autosol` polish may not be available in France but jewellers rouge may do the job, but its messy.

John.

Hello Mr Watson Brown,

I note that you are building my skeleton clock design.

May I draw your attention to Mr Russel Eberhardt`s comments on the various errors that have crept into the original article In M.E.

You will find this in the `View all topics`-`Clocks` section under the heading `15 day Skeleton Clock`

If you have any problems building this clock, you are welcome to contact me on [email protected]

Please note that , due to a technical glitch, my previous email address has changed from [email protected]

Best of luck with your project.

John Parslow.

Thank you Stub mandrel. I have passed on your information.

Hello Gents.

A friend has acquired a Synchronome master clock and some slave clocks which he would to make into `stand alone` clocks.

Does anyone know of a suitable battery powered circuit which will provide the nessary 30 second impulses?

Hello Gents.

A friend has acquired a Synchrome master clock and several slave clocks. He would like to convert the slave clocks into `stand alone ` clocks. Does anyone know of a suitable battery powered electronic circuit for this purpose.

John Parslow.

Hello M r Hoggard.

If you will kindly contact me on [email protected] I will send you details of a system of dial matting described by Alan Timmins which I tried and found it gave an excellent result.

Regards.

John Parslow.