Smiths K7A chime problems

[Leffemonster]

Hi all, first post on here so please go easy on me! I’m primarily a watch collector/tinkerer and active on Wrist Sushi and The Watch Site. I’ve recently been given a Smiths mantle clock with a K7A movement. I can find very little on the web about them so thought I’d try here. The clock is a Westminster chiming/striking clock, but it only chimes on the hour - nothing on the quarters, and no striking of the hour. I’ve attached an audio file of the chime.

if anyone can offer me any advice on what the issue might be, or if it’s supposed to chime like that, I’d appreciate it. My only experience of clock movements was trying to dismantle a Hermle 340 that ended badly after one of the mainsprings let go when I was trying to wind it down - it destroyed the movement and almost broke my wrist…

Smiths K7A chime.m4a

[RogerH]

Hi Leffemonster, welcome to the forum. can you give us any pictures? The more the merrier, always helps to see what's going on.

[Leffemonster]

Hi Roger. Here you go -

 

[oldhippy]

Smith's 8 day floating balance westminster chime. The chimes sound good and have a good tone. As It is not striking is there power on the strike, is the chime strike silent lever in the correct position (it's the lever at 9 on the dial)  The strike might be caught up somehow and you will need to remove the movement from the the case to check the strike. Do you know how this type of strike/ chime should work?

[Leffemonster]

Both the chime and strike mainsprings were already fully wound and I put about 4 turns on the movement mainspring earlier this week and flicked the balance into life. In the last hour it chimed as per the audio file at 5.15 and struck 4 o’clock. At both 5.30 and just now at 5.45 it repeated the full chime and struck 1 o’clock. And 
As you say, it’s a Westminster chime movement but as the audio file demonstrates, it does more than the ‘usual’ Westminster chime would do.

[watchweasol]

Hi  Unfortuatly there are no picture of the front plate which would be useful as all the control of the chime/strike takes place from the levers on the front plate and the star cam on the center wheel.  The star cam has 4 points on it, one longer than the others this lifts for the hour strike the other three control the quarters and the chime locking cam on the  top right of the front plate controls the duration. Also if the chime/silent lever is at half cock that may cause problems, It is also possible that the pin barrel and drive gears are out of sync. attached two pics of front plates  to illustrate      cheers

[Leffemonster]

Thanks for that. I’ll look to take the movement out at some point and have a look. I know very little about clocks but when I was working on the Hermle that I ruined I remember seeing the rack and snail. I had to return a brand new Hermle movement to Cousins as it only struck ‘1’ no matter what the hour was as there was an issue with either the rack or the snail.

[oldhippy]

Your movement will look very much like this. If you haven't had it running and chiming for a few hours these movements put themselves right after a few hours. Here is the hammer sequence   

 

[Leffemonster]

It’s continuing to do the ‘weird’ chime every quarter and strike 1 o’clock. Maybe it’ll sort itself out - it’s been running since the weekend but only recently started striking, so I’ll see what happens. I’ll need to see if I can remove the movement at some point - even though I can’t see the front the mounting points look the same and the chime/silent lever is in that position. Thanks for the photo.

[watchweasol]

Hi  Old Hippy has provided a strike sequence chart so by moving the hands round the clock you should be able to count the sequence on the chime rods  ie 2314 for the first quarter and so on.    I have some information on the chime/strike on another computer  so will have a look          cheers

[Leffemonster]

I’ve just observed the hammer sequence. On every quarter (now at least), it chimes the 4th quarter followed by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd in sequence, i.e. -

3124 3213 1324 4213 1234 3124 3213 1324 4213 1234

I notice the sequence is different from the table above? I’ve numbered the chime bars as 1 being furthest away in the phot above and 4 the closest.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Leffemonster

[watchweasol]

Hi this book contains a lot of useful material apertaining to clocks and watches. chapter 18  ( page 134 for chiming clocks.)

If what you have quoted is one continious chime its not locking and the first quarter is a round of one  round  2nd  is two rounds  3rd is three hour is four followed by the hour strike as per OH's chart

handbook_of_watch_and_clock_repairsa.pdf

[Leffemonster]

Thanks for that pdf, that’ll be very useful indeed.