Hi All,
I just came across this thread, did not see this one.....I am ashamed to say that this was ME, this was my first and LAST Haller clock!!
I got this from an auction and when I got it home, I could not wait to try it out to see if it worked.. At the time I was only into the restoration of French slate clocks, so this was a new one for me.
I set it up and tried to wind, but it was fully wound, so started the balls going and it worked. I wanted to see that it worked OK before stripping down to clean it, as it was a tad grubby and I like to tinker... After about twenty minutes it stopped, perhaps it needs a drop of oil I thought,..BIG MISTAKE!!! I started to undo the 4 nuts on the backplate, un-be known to me this also held the mainspring in place. what a stupid setup, no warning not to remove.
Well this is how I gave it the name of The German Time Bomb, because it went BOOOM it exploded very loud, and the plastic mainspring wheel after it shot out and broken into lots of pieces, it embedded in my chest, I also got a nasty cut on my hand, I was very lucky, if that had hit me in the eye, I dread to think what would have happened. The photo doesn't show all the bits of the mainspring, there were lots!!...Lessons were learnt that day.. Strange I read there was another that exploded on someone's mantlepiece about a week later, this was just sitting there and suddenly went, there was glass everywhere from the dome...My clock went in the dustbin never to be seen again.. I remember later I put the dome off mine on ebay and got more for that than I paid for the clock!!
As I said lesson learned!!!!!!
I will stick to my French and carriage clocks, a little safer!!
Len