Expert: Michael Radi - 12/7/2010

Question
This clock appears to be from the 40's or 50's.  It has three winding ports (wound with a large key) and two smaller ports.  The large ports are positioned at the 8, 6, and 4 o'clock positions on the face plate. On the left of the "12" on the minute ring there is a letter "F".  On the right there is a "S".  In the middle of the "12" is a small port that I suspect this is where adjustments are make to make the clock faster or slower as it correlates with the "F" and "S" on the minute ring.  About 1 inch further down there is another port that appears broken (or it takes a male key which I don't have) that says chime/silent.  What I am looking for is a key that I can use to adjust how fast or slow the clock will run.  Can you help?

Answer
Hi Thomas,
You are right, the "F" is for fast and the "S" is for slow.  You would use a small key to slow down or speed up the time keeping of the clock by turning the arbor inside that hole. The other small hole is to turn the chime on and off. The on/off arbor should be the same as the F/S one. These clocks came with a double ended key. The large end was for winding, the small end would do the other functions we discussed above.
If there is not a square arbor inside the on/off hole something is missing or broken. The clock face would have to be removed to see what's up there. I don't have one of these movements that I can check a key size on. I recall the small arbor being larger than a typical American mantle clock. I looked in some old catalogs and they reference the small end as being 1.85mm, 2.0mm or 2.4mm.  I think your arbor is the 2.4mm. The other tricky thing is that the hole those arbors are in is not much larger than the arbor is. So the key you use must have a thin wall to fit inside there. If you already have a winding key I would get a watch key to do the fast slow adjustment. I can help you with that if you like.
Michael
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