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Seth Thomas 103a repair


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A clock dude in Texas gave me a bunch of stuff when I bought some things from him.  This clock (a banjo style, but only movement shown here) was one of them.  It was pretty battered up but my wife wanted to hang it somewhere, so I decided to see if I could get it running.  I took the express lane on this one--I removed the mainspring unit and then ran the rest of the movement--assembled--in the ultrasonic using L&R clock cleaning solution.  It came out looking nice.  I inspected the bushings and they looked fine, so I oiled it and it took off nicely.  I am regulating it now.

The bezel had a broken arm so I had to make one from a raw brass rod.  I heated the rod with a torch to bend it properly and then heated the end and flattened it on an anvil.  Then I cut 4-40 threads on the end.  The other side is not 4-40 but since I had a 4-40 die, that was what it did--yeah...kinda Frankenstein...but it is my clock and that is good enough for me.  The winding key was not original, now was the setting knob.

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The express way is not recommended.. This method does not allow for inspection of pivots and if the bushing are not absolutely clean the the oil will just turn to a form of grinding paste. Also getting consistent regulation will also be problematic..

 

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1 minute ago, oldhippy said:

I would have thought it should be easy to obtain a key for an American clock as you are in America. Here in England we have suppliers who can provide most parts for American clocks. Have you tried anywhere?  

I have looked around but have not found one yet, and I dont want to spend much money on this.  At any rate, for now, it is not worth it.  I have a canister of threaded winders which I inherited.  None of them fit.  Three requirements: proper threads,  wide bale, folding bale.  I will keep my eye out.

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    • I would go for the dearer spring. You won't need to remove the spring from the carrier ring and then use a mainspring winder to get it into the barrel, for a start. Also that spring is closer to the needed dimensions, especially the length. The length plays a part in the mainsprings strength. If you double the length you will half the force (strength) of the spring and vice-versa. A spring with 20 mm less length would be about 7% shorter, so technically would be 7% more strength, but I find halving this number is closer to real-world findings, so the spring would be about 3 to 4% more strength/force. On a mainspring that ideally kicks out 300 degrees of amplitude, a 3% increase in amplitude would be 309 degrees. Increasing or decreasing the length of the mainspring will affect the power reserve to a greater or lesser degree. It depends how much shorter or longer it is.
    • I recently bought this but not on ebay. I figured if I want something Japanese I better check Japanese auction sites since these don't seem to pop up on ebay. I paid 83 € plus shipping & taxes. I think it was pretty reasonable for a complete set in good condition.
    • Did you take the friction pinion off the large driving wheel and grease it? Although, now that I think about it, that shouldn't have any effect on the free running of the train if the friction pinion isn't interacting withe minute wheel/setting wheel...
    • I did in fact use Rodico to get the spring into general position and "hold" it there while I used a fine oiler to make subtle positional adjustments.
    • The two measurements of particular importance wound be the height and the strength,  the length would obviously correspond with the increase/reduction of half mm of barrel diameter. There is a big difference in price considering that the more expensive one is the shortest. The longer one might be ok ? But then it is taking up more room in the barrel, might it effect the unwinding ? I wouldn't have thought so for just that small amount.  Ideally a pro might reduce the longer one to suit. But there is some information that might help, do you have the one that was fitted to measure up, though not necessarily the right one.
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