Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A grandfather clock (also a longcase clock, tall-case clock, grandfather's clock, hall clock or floor clock) is a tall, freestanding, weight-driven pendulum clock, with the pendulum held inside the tower or waist of the case. Clocks of this style are commonly 1.8–2.4 metres (6–8 feet) tall with an enclosed pendulum and weights, suspended by ...
The escapement is a mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum by giving it a small push each swing, and allows the clock's wheels to advance a fixed amount with each swing, moving the clock's hands forward. The anchor escapement was so named because one of its principal parts is shaped vaguely like a ship's anchor.
Animation of an anchor escapement, widely used in pendulum clocks. An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands.
Antique clock repair involves a few tricks and a couple of special tools, but in general it’s fairly easy work, according to Mark Kinsler
In striking clocks, the striking train is a gear train that moves a hammer to strike the hours on a gong. It is usually driven by a separate but identical power source to the going train. In antique clocks, to save costs, it was often identical to the going train, and mounted parallel to it on the left side when facing the front of the clock. [11]
The foliot was a horizontal bar with weights near its ends affixed to a vertical bar called the verge which was suspended free to rotate. The verge escapement caused the foliot to oscillate back and forth about its vertical axis. [12] The rate of the clock could be adjusted by moving the weights in or out on the foliot.
The Seymour tall case clock in the White House, more commonly known as the Oval Office grandfather clock, is an 8-foot-10-inch (269 cm) longcase clock, made between 1795 and 1805 in Boston by John and Thomas Seymour, and has been located in the Oval Office since 1975. [1]
He used free-swinging pendulums as timers in scientific experiments and for keeping time for music. In 1637, when he was 73, Galileo had the idea of a mechanism that would keep the pendulum swinging by giving it pushes, an escapement, thus allowing it to be applied to clocks. Since he was by then totally blind, he described the mechanism to his ...