Loud tick on a fusee clock cured

[2131tom]

I acquired (another) old fusee wall clock the other week.  Smuggled it into the house and swore blind, when asked, that 'I'd had it forever but it had been in the garage waiting to be sorted out'.

Anyhow, when I'd set it up it turned out to have a disconcertingly loud tick, so much so that it seemed to take over the whole room.  It kept excellent time and was a dream to set in beat but, oh, that tick.

I'm no expert, and I can appreciate some of you may know what I'm about to say, but I'd remembered being told to check the residual tension in the spring, which is meant to allow fusees to work right to the end of the chain.  I did that, and found someone, in setting it up in the past, had given it at least 8 initial turns (and maybe another one 'for luck'), which meant there was a lot of tension in the spring, even when it was supposed to be fully unwound.  I let the tension down to zero and then gave it a turn-an-a-half initial, followed by a wind on the fusee itself to get it going.  The clock still ran perfectly, but the tick was reduced to a whisper.

Maximum winding to full fusee hasn't changed the volume and the clock's now a very welcome and unobtrusive visitor to the dining room.  As I said, some of you may already know this, but I felt it was worth posting for any of you who didn't.

[oldhippy]

Setting the tension correctly should be so that the line or chain cannot be moved on the barrel when the clock has run down. That is all it takes.

Good for you in sorting it out. These types of movements keep excellent time.