Clocks and gears and pendulum

We have a large clock that stands about 7 feet tall. The simple wood case, with its very dark stain was made by my great-great grandfather about a century and a half ago living in the small town of Colrain Massachusetts. [this was once a tidbit I would use as a response when I started working near there early in my career and some of the locals called me an "outsider" as my family can be trace in that area going back to the 1600s.]

But that is not the point. This clock is tall but not wide. Some people call it a grandfather clock though I have read that because of its thin size that it could also be call a grandmother clock.

But that is not the point either. This clock originally had wooden gears and works that made it run but the story is that some of them broke and my great grandmother stored them in a box until they were unceremoniously tossed in the trash. Eeeeekkkk was even the reaction I can remember 40 years ago.


But believe it or not that is not the point either, but I am getting closer. The clock stood empty and quiet for many many decades, being passed down a few generations until my Mom and Dad who had a friend who liked to work on clocks. Her ordered and installed new insides and another artist friend took the face and repainted it. The narrowness of the case determined the chime that could be installed and this is a very simple gong on the hour and single hit on the half hour. Then for the next twenty years or so it rhythmically ticked and chimed on the hour and on the half and then it stopped. It had become such a presence. The sound heard in throughout the night and the day.

The friend who had fixed it had long died so it again just sat there for another five years until I inherited from my parents.

Fortunately there is a clock shop in the Berkshires who took out the innards immediately after moving it here. Three months later (12 weeks to be precise) and it was back, its rhythmic tic and gentle gong that I would hear though out the house in the middle of the night. And then a year later it stopped.

With a minimum fee of $100 just to come look at it and then more to do something I was reluctant to immediately call someone and decided to look inside myself. The clock would wind up but the pendulum would move back and forth for about a minute then stop. You can see from these pictures that there are several gears and wires and ratchets. But then I spotted that the pendulum was just hanging.



Looking closer and closer, something that becomes less easy with these middle aged eyes, I found that there were many possible places from which to attach the pendulum. Each of which would enable it to move for a minute or so and then it would stop.

Each day I would come back to the clock and take off the face and try another position for the pendulum to hook to until finally it continued to swing and was back in business. The pendulum swung and the gears moved and parts spun around and around and the hands turned until that familiar bong.

I took these pictures of the insides to remind me of where it attaches for when it happens again. But as you can see taking pictures really close up makes it difficult for the camera to figure out how or what to focus on.

So is there a point to this post other than a pleasant story about a clock? I really is about how things fit together, how one piece out of place can totally stop the works and how it can sometimes be just a delicate attachment and connection that starts things back to working again. But how that connection can be broken again, but as you learn the weak points you can work around them, fix as necessary and the Little fixes stay little, even though not doing them makes everything stop.