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tandeejay
10-10-2015, 9:13pm
In the "Time" 52/2015 Challenge (http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?142173-The-2015-Members-Challenge-Week-40-quot-Time-quot/page2) fenderstrat1963; asked to see some more old clocks.

Well, here are a few:

120578

120580

120581

This next one is fully handmade including the mechanism

120582

I don't have a photo of the mechanism in the above clock, which is certainly unique, as my Uncle (Bruced) designed it to resolve a well known wear problem with the standard escapement design with components that slide across the escapement wheel. With this design, the escapement has no sliding parts, and therefore reduced wear. Here is a photo of the prototype built in meccano. This prototype includes a second hand attached directly to a rod passing through the 2 escapement wheels which you can see made from brass. Bruce originally built this design completely out of meccano including the escapement wheels, which has been running constantly for the past 40 years. The original doesn't have a second hand. I helped build the below prototype about 20 years ago, and our aim was to have a second hand. The problem we found with using genuine meccano parts was that the escapement had 56 teeth so the second hand would not tick in seconds, but would rather have 56 units to the minute, so Bruce manufactured wheels with the right number of teeth for a 60 second minute. Of course once we'd started along the path of making parts for the clock out of hunks of brass instead of meccano, Bruce decided he had to go the whole hog, and construct a clock using his escapement design with no meccano components. This is now sitting in the above clock case.

Prototype clock mechanism:
120583

Mary Anne
11-10-2015, 10:01am
That is so interesting John, and really like that handmade look about #4 its so different, and Thanks for Sharing once again..

fenderstrat1963
11-10-2015, 2:27pm
Thank you very much John! My wife and I have just been admiring them. The description of the meccano mechanism is very interesting - and it's longevity is amazing!

tandeejay
11-10-2015, 3:36pm
Next time I'm over at my Uncle's place I'll try and get some more photos of the meccano mechanism, and I'll see if I can get a photo of the inside of the other clock.

Makinater1985
04-02-2016, 10:28pm
Nice shot, I like this photos so much. Old is gold.

Mark L
08-02-2016, 9:33pm
John's jumped up and down 'cause someone revived a thread that's 5 months old.
Sorry about the spam.:p

tandeejay
08-02-2016, 10:32pm
Reminds me though that I haven't yet got the extra photos of the mechanism


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fenderstrat1963
09-02-2016, 5:32am
Sounds like more pics coming then? :)

tandeejay
09-02-2016, 7:24am
Yep. Need to get over to my uncles place to get them


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tandeejay
09-07-2016, 8:15pm
As promised, I got some photos of the insides of the handmade clock

https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8578/27574549943_4a9c20f949_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/J1EM1T)
Escapement (https://flic.kr/p/J1EM1T) by John Blackburn (https://www.flickr.com/photos/99216317@N08/), on Flickr

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8715/28156086346_376d47bf3a_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/JU4iwA)
Winder Ratchet (https://flic.kr/p/JU4iwA) by John Blackburn (https://www.flickr.com/photos/99216317@N08/), on Flickr


Sorry I didn't get more, but I found it difficult to get an angle that wasn't blocked by something.

And here is a link to a video of the escapement in operation for those who are interested.

https://flic.kr/p/J1EAZb

fenderstrat1963
10-07-2016, 5:14am
Thanks very much for posting those John :th3: The escapement sounds almost musical in the video :)

tandeejay
10-07-2016, 7:05am
Actually the ticking in the video is several other clocks with conventional escapements


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phild
10-07-2016, 9:02am
That's a beautiful piece of work, old clocks are fascinating. I saw a large and very beautiful clock in a glass case at Greenwich observatory a couple of years ago. We were in a bit of a hurry so I didn't properly read the descriptive. I found in our return home that it was John Harrison's H1 (1735) the first clock sufficiently accurate to be used for determination of longitude for navigation at sea. A modern day version of one of Harrison's designs has been proven to be accurate to within a second over 100 days. The story of Harrison's genius is outlined in the book Longitude by Dava Sobel and William Andrews, it's well worth a read.

Mary Anne
10-07-2016, 3:49pm
Interesting John also the Video.