Expert: Kenneth Saunders - 10/2/2008

Question
QUESTION: I moved a Herschede 9-tubular bell clock across town.  I moved it carefully and had removed all weights and chime tubes, and secured all chime hammers, but failed to roll up the cables before transfer.  Needless to say, the cables relaxed and caused some crossing over, particularly on the chime and strike train barrels.  I manually ran the clock carefully forward and the semi-tangles undid themselves.  However, I can see no apparent crossing over of the cable associated with the time train barrel, which has failed to lower itself during this process.  The time train weight has not dropped at all.  The mechanism chimes perfectly on all quarter hours and strikes the hours correctly.  Unfortunately, the pendulum stops randomly between 30 and 40 minutes after doing a slight forward/backwards wobble.  I changed out the suspension spring and the clock is level.  Is this associated with a non-moving time train?  Can I manually unwind the cable?  Thanks.

ANSWER: so the clock ticks for 30 minutes? that means the time train ran for 30 minutes. yes you can manually unwind the cable- but it is a pain on these Herschedes. Might try un hooking the pendulum and letting the leader tick fast and have the time train run out that way if it will.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Ken,

I was able to let the clock "fast forward" by removing the pendulum until all the train cables were untangled.  It ran all day long wihout stopping while the pendulum was removed.  I then wound up the cables, and they went onto the barrels perfectly into their grooved slots.  I then reattached the pendulum and it stopped ticking after 20 to 30 minutes again.  Becasue it ran all day without the pendulum, I guess that there must be some problem with my pendulum that is making it stop now.  Any ideas or suggestions?  Thanks again for your advice.

Answer
the beat or tick evenness may well be off--the silver dollar sized dial on the pendulum near the top has a knerled hand screw that releases the dial to be turned left and right as needed to dial in the beat to sound even and then be locked in place. (The pin behind it needs to be in the slot in the pendulum leader)