Tag Archives: Ansonia Derby

Adjusting the Count Lever on an Ansonia Clock Movement

While waiting for its case to be repaired, my craft-altered Ansonia Derby clock has been running on a test stand – off and on for quite a while. I noticed that every great once in a while the count lever failed to drop into the 8 o’clock slot, causing the number of hours struck to be incorrect from then on.

The problem was that the count lever needed adjusting so the lever wouldn’t hang up on the walls of the slot it was dropping into. In this post I describe my adventure of adjusting (bending) the count lever.

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Calculating a Clock’s Ideal Pendulum Period, the Sequel

In an earlier post I calculated the ideal pendulum period for the Korean clock by counting its wheels’ teeth (outer teeth) and pinions (inner teeth). This post is an update based on the errors I made while attempting to do the same for my second clock: the Ansonia kitchen clock.

What follows is a more detailed “how to” for calculating the pendulum period based on gear ratios.

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Loosening Antique Glue Using Heat

As I said in my previous post about the Ansonia Derby clock, it seems that long ago part of the upper gingerbread broke and the owner sawed off the rest, reducing the upper gingerbread to a simple arch. I’d like to create new gingerbread for this clock. To do that I need to unglue the original, cut remnant and glue my to-be-designed gingerbread in its place.

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The Second Clock: A Craft-Altered Ansonia Derby

Since I was making good progress on my first clock, I decided to haunt the antique malls looking for a second one to repair. I wasn’t really planning to buy a clock until I’d finished the first, but I found the perfect second clock to work on.

I found it in an antique mall in Hillsboro (Oregon). It’s a mantel clock – a Kitchen Clock – similar to my family Seth Thomas clock that is my eventual target for repair (once I know what I’m doing). It also fit the bill of a) not working well, and b) not worth a lot.

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