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Hermle 351-051 chime timing


Geoffrey

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Good morning all!

I have on the bench a Hermle 351-051 that came in not running. It was a swap deal with an acquaintance - I service the clock movement in exchange for some hard to find amateur radio valves for vintage radio gear (my other hobby).

It runs fine now, after a strip, clean and rebuild with fresh lube and a new suspension spring.

My question is timing the chime train.

On the rear of the piece I see the hammer drive wheel has a pop mark on a tooth, and the driven wheel has a sort of slot between two teeth, plus the cams that lift the chime hammers all have pop marks on them that align with each other.

Does anyone know the quick and easy method for timing this train properly?

I could figure it all out by trial and error but seeing the pop marks and so on I reckon there must be an easy way and that they must be significant.

The 40 year old movement was so gummed up and filthy that I failed to notice the marks etc on dismantling, and so yes, didn't see properly how it went together, and without the actual gongs I can't hear the chiming tones, just see the pattern of the hammers as they rise and fall.

 

Anyone with experience or thoughts on these?

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Timing the chime train? I take it you mean the chime side isn't working as it should. I would like to see some photos of the movement to advise you on what to do. Picture of the front plate, back plate and between plates showing the chime side. The wheels on the chime and strike side with there levers in a certain way to work correctly.  Is it striking correctly? 

Pop marks do you mean punch marks?

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3 hours ago, oldhippy said:

Timing the chime train? I take it you mean the chime side isn't working as it should. I would like to see some photos of the movement to advise you on what to do. Picture of the front plate, back plate and between plates showing the chime side. The wheels on the chime and strike side with there levers in a certain way to work correctly.  Is it striking correctly? 

Pop marks do you mean punch marks?

Good afternoon, from outside Cape Town to mid-Devon!

Thanks for responding.

Yes, it strikes correctly.

Pics below.....

The front-plate shows at roughly one o clock and maybe one-thirty from the centre post are two small brass wheels- at one o clock a device to lock and release the levers that in turn release the strike and chime trains, at one-thirty a cam that releases the chime train for the quarter, half, three-quarter and hour chimes, the last cam of which further raises the levers to release the strike train.

 

There are then three pics of between the plates.

Then follows a pic of the hammer cams showing the pop marks (marine engineering term, sorry...punch marks, yes). Think these are simply to ensure the cams are correctly oriented on their own shaft. Though I dismantled the hammers from their shaft I did not dismantle the cams from their shaft. The small driven gear that transfers drive to the camshaft can be seen at the front end of the square sectioned camshaft.

 

Then there are 2 images of that driven gear showing the line on it's surface, and then the punch mark on the drive gear itself. With flash the one mark is more easily seen, without flash the other mark more easily seen.

 

The way the hammers are striking at the moment does not seem convincing to me that a Westminster chime would be the result.....timing is off and at rest one hammer is somewhat higher than the other 3.

 

I am sure I would be able to work it out, I was just wondering if there was a known method of timing or setting up the chime train based on the marks I have found.

 

Again - thanks for your response, much appreciated.

 

 

 

Frontplate.jpg

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Chime cams.jpg

Gearmeshmarks2.jpg

Gearmeshmarks.jpg

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It should definitely be Westminster. Turn the hammer cam until the hammers fall "1234", this would be the position for the end of the 3/4 strike, which is where you are on what Hermle call the "chime lock plate", the part on the front with the different lobes. 1234 is also the strike for the 1/4, so you can position that plate just after the smallest lobe (it turns clockwise). Usually on these the warning pin on the 5th wheel should be pointing at the fly when positioning the "chime lock plate", this gives about 90 degrees of rotation for the warning.

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1 hour ago, nickelsilver said:

It should definitely be Westminster. I thought so.Turn the hammer cam until the hammers fall "1234", this would be the position for the end of the 3/4 strike, which is where you are on what Hermle call the "chime lock plate", the part on the front with the different lobes. Gottit....1234 is also the strike for the 1/4, so you can position that plate just after the smallest lobe (it turns clockwise). Yip, understood. Usually on these the warning pin on the 5th wheel should be pointing at the fly when positioning the "chime lock plate", this gives about 90 degrees of rotation for the warning. Exactly as I thought and set it up, in terms of the warning pin and the fly.

Excellent - and the punch marks etc on the gear at the back? Not relevant except during manufacture, possibly?

Great, and many thanks Nickelsilver.

I had it basically this way except for the cam just after the 1234 sequence...I messed around with trying to align punch marks and such...might be the punch marks on the cams have some meaning relative to the 1234 or something...I'll look into it.

I basically set up the chime lock plate, the warning pin etc for the notch before the 1/4 hour cam, but didn't know the hammer cam position relative to that. Makes sense to set it all up just after the 1234 or 1/4.....easy reference point.

I appreciate the info, muchly.

Chime lock plate...noted. I didn't find a whole lot of what might be a technical manual etc online. I may well not be searching in the correct places yet; I haven't been at this too long.

Edited by Geoffrey
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On 4/23/2021 at 1:17 PM, oldhippy said:

So you have got it sorted, sorry I forgot yesterday I was busy researching my  genealogy.   

Apologies for taking a while to get back here and thank everyone for their input.

I've been busy with this clock, as well as a lovely JW Benson brass carriage clock from about 1852, and an Omega Constellation from 1975, all the while thinking about packing everything up for our emigration in June.

The workshop has to be shut down and all my tools, ham radio gear and suchlike has to be packed up in the next two weeks to go into the container so we don't have to wait too long to receive it all on the other side....so a lot has been going on.

Yes, the Hermle is running well, and the chime train operating perfectly. I set it up pretty much as NIckelsilver said, and it's all good.

I have an irritating issue with the leader apparently oscillating against the crutch and making a little rattling noise that the basically hollow pendulum is almost amplifying, but other than that its all good.

Mainly the chime and strike are operating perfectly, and now I am letting it run a while before doing a final regulating, and then it goes into a box and back to the owner.

 

Thanks again to everyone for their input.

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21 hours ago, Geoffrey said:

I have an irritating issue with the leader apparently oscillating against the crutch and making a little rattling noise that the basically hollow pendulum is almost amplifying, but other than that its all good.

I had a clock with this problem recently. A tiny blob of grease solved the problem.

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22 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

I had a clock with this problem recently. A tiny blob of grease solved the problem.

Thanks, HectorLooi (Dutch or Belgian, perhaps?)

I will try that. Iit's a simple little irritating issue that doesn't seem to affect operation in any way, but it detracts from the soothing tick-tock I like to hear..a kind of tick-tokerlock....damn! ?

 

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55 minutes ago, Geoffrey said:

Thanks, HectorLooi (Dutch or Belgian, perhaps?)

I will try that. Iit's a simple little irritating issue that doesn't seem to affect operation in any way, but it detracts from the soothing tick-tock I like to hear..a kind of tick-tokerlock....damn! ?

 

No. Singaporean Chinese.

Yes. It drove me nuts too. I checked the escapement multiple times but couldn't find any fault. Then I remembered that this was one of the lubrication points that OldHippy told me to grease.

Hope it works for you.

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3 hours ago, HectorLooi said:

No. Singaporean Chinese.

Yes. It drove me nuts too. I checked the escapement multiple times but couldn't find any fault. Then I remembered that this was one of the lubrication points that OldHippy told me to grease.

Hope it works for you.

Ah, my bad!

Apologies!

Very nice place, Singapore - I had my 19th birthday in the Long Bar back in 1983, and have been back a few times since, the last time in 2019.

I'll dob a dab of grease when I get into the workshop a bit later this afternoon, and let you know.

 

Again, thanks for the tip.

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