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Clocks, Watches/New England Clock Co. Floor Clock

Expert: William J Perkins - 6/30/2010

Question

Hello,
I just recently purchased a New England Clock Co. Floor Clock or (Grandfather Clock) model #177 it is about 35 years old. It has a triple chime Hermele movement and also a silent position (this is not an automatic "night off" type) but just a manual silence position. It is chain/weight driven and I can only get the time to work on it. Every time I set it to any of the chime positions it will run and start chiming at the correct time. The problem is that the chime and hour gong just keep going and going without stopping and it will keep running and keeping correct time for a few minutes while chiming and eventually the chimes do stop and so does the pendulum and time movement. So I then have to put it back in the silent position and restart the clock and the clock continues to run fine as long as I don't set it to chime. If you could offer any suggestions as to how to correct this I would greatly appreciate it. My knowledge of clocks is fairly limited as I have ever really only oiled them with clock oil and never have taken any apart and re-assembled, however I did replace the suspension spring in the clock that I've talked about here. That was a fairly easy fix. One other thing I noticed about the clock is the hands are very hard to move in the reverse position for setting the correct time. Could it be jamming somehow? The weights are all in their correct positions. Again any help is appreciated . Thank you very much, Jim

Answer
I urge that you not turn the clock hands backwards. This can be very detrimental to the clock. When a situation arises where the clock must be turn backwards, STOP THE CLOCK until sufficient time has lapsed to require moving the hand forward to achieve proper time setting. Always stop moving the hand forward until the current sequence has completed. Continue doing this until the correct time is reflected by the hand and chime/strike. Now as to the strike not stopping when it should, it is quite likely that a lift lever is hung up and cannot fall into its lock position. This is one of the possible consequences of moving the hands backwards to set or not allowing each sequence to complete before moving to the next one. I believe this should do it for you, Regards WJP