John Wilding Elegant Scroll Skeleton Clock

Hi Guys I finished the Elegant Scroll clock and it keeps excellent time but will not run for 8 days! I got the latest book and it says there wasn't enough resilience and the barrel should have been made larger ie 2.250" doesn't say inside or out? the simplest method is to make the Fusse smaller but doesn't say by how much?

Anybody done the modifications?

Regards,

John.

Going off my copy of the book, in the BOM it lists:

• 1x 2" length of 2.25" OD by 3/32" wall thickness brass tube for the barrel.

I'm still in the process of modeling the clock in CAD before I start building and don't entirely have my head wrapped around his diagrams for the fusee assembly (and there aren't any real great pictures of it that I've found so far) but his dimensions of the fusee are:

• Small End: 11/16" OD
• Distance from Small to Large End (including flat): 1.5" (flat length 1/8"
• Curve profile: 2.2" Radius

That being said, I'm currently trying to determine if that small radius is correct, since the same page shows the Fusee Stop as having an 13/16" diameter basis, and not the 11/16" diameter the diagram above it appears to show

I can' find that title among the wilding books..... There is the ':Large wheel skeleton clock' book mentioned at teh start of this topic and there is 'How to Make a Skeleton clock' isbn; 0 9503512 21 1

Inn the latter book mentioned above the first chapter is headed; "an 8-day Skeleton Clock". Several members of Epping Forest Horology club have made the clock successfully and I have not heard of any 'duration' problems. However, I have made a set of wheels, barrel & fusee recently to use in another clock of my own design.....there are many inaccuracies, gaps and problems in the book that I have found, and in fact will not use a wilding design/publication again for this reason. Among our members the wilding books have attracted increasing criticism in recent years....so questions;...

.......A couple of years back Wilding published an article on 'Horological Journal' mentioning that his fusee patterns would benefit from being smaller but did not intone by how much!

1) What isbn number are you working from?

2) How long does your clock run for?

3) What is the actual title of your book?

4) in mentioning a bigger barrel,, did your book happen to mention a bigger spring?

Edited By Bob Stevenson on 07/01/2020 22:38:19

Just to be clear, the values I posted above are from this book:

• Title: The Construction of an Elegant Scroll Frame Skeleton Clock (and Mainspring Winder)
• Store: http://iantcobb.co.uk/e%20skeleton.html
• If there is an ISBN or other publication number associated with this book, I cannot find it.

Looking at the notes section in the front, I now see the following:

"It should be noted that the correct strength of spring to drive the clock is one of 0.45mm thickness, height 38mm and 50mm diameter. This is a standard mainspring available from suppliers"

He then goes on to say in the next paragraph:

"If perhaps due to lack of freedom in the train the clock will not run on a spring strength of .45mm and you have to fit a .5mm spring then you will need a larger barrel. This should be 2.5" OD, 3/32" wall thickness. There is plenty of room in the frames for this size of barrel. The spring diameter will then be 63mm"

In the actual text of the book, he says that the 0.45mm spring would run the clock for 8 days, and the 5mm for 7.5, but it's not clear if this text was updated along with the note, or the note was added and the original text left alone, so it's still not very clear.

I think I personally, unless someone else chimes in with experience to the contrary, am going to default to the 2.5OD by 3/32" barrel with the .5mm spring since it looks like his diagrams have also been updated to match, but this doesn't really help anyone in the short term since I'm a long ways away from knowing if this will yield an 8-day clock. This is both my first clock and first workshop project, so I'm taking my time.

Mine will run happily for the 7 days between windings. Regarding spring strength modern springs are stronger than the old plain carbon springs for the same dimensions.

On my clock the stopwork engages before the mainspring is fully wound so there are a few more turn available. A slightly finer pitch on the fuzee grooving woould give you some extra turns. Another thought is if the fusee has been made with too much meat in the middle that would reduce the going time as would the point where the line starts and stops.

Just to clarify things and ask a stupid question. The clock is stopping because it has run out of line and not because it runs out of torque isn't it? In other words has all the line been unwound from the fuzee?

regards Martin

I ended up putting micro bearings / bearings on all arbours apart from the pallet, I made the larger barrel 2/14 " and the smaller arbour 0.5" and I sourced a 0.4mm spring and the clock keeps time within a minute a week with the weaker spring the pallets are having an easier life!