Fast striking on Vienna Regulator

[Boz]

A friend asked me to fix his Vienna Regulator a couple of months ago. It's history was that he inherited it from his Grandfather who was a collector. It was serviced fairly recently before he passed away. My friend moved the clock without removing the pendulum and it never ran again. Since then it has gathered dust. He has asked me to repair it.

Being unfamiliar with striking clocks I did some reading and procured some gash movements with similar striking mechanisms and serviced them before moving on to the Vienna Regulator.

The crutch was bent, and easily corrected. I then wound it to see if it would go. It still would not run nor would the strike activate when the repeat lever was lifted. The gears were dusty and the oil gungy so cleaning is definitely required. Checking the movement before dismantling the escapement seemed functional though the guard over the crutch (I dont know if there is a correct term) looked like a bit of bodge and the escapement could only just move far enought to  release on the exit side. The pivots were all good though one pivot on the 3rd wheel needed burnishing lightly. Interestingly the 3rd wheel looked like it had been repivoted, but the arbor seemed to be a little short leaving a full millimetre of end play allowing the pivot to sink well below the bottom of the oil sink. I made a tiny collar to ensure the 3rd wheel pivot didn't sink in to its hole whilst leaving sufficient end play.

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When reassembled I set the movement in a level holder. It would run but whenever it approached being in beat the crutch would hit the crutch guard, with a tick...tock-clunk...tick...tock-clunk. You could only get it in beat and not hitting the guard by tilting the mechanism and adjusting the crutch pin to compensate. Looking carefully at the guard sitting over the crutch, I could see that it was off to one side by about 3mm. Whenever the pendulum swung to the left far enough to disengage the escapement tooth, the crutch would hit the guard. It was clearly not original judging by it's crude appearance and scruffy screws. You can see it on the left in the picture below along with the replacement guard and screws that I made on the right. I also made a tool to fit the threaded studs on the front plate:

With the new guard in place I checked the escapement tooth by tooth and it worked perfectly now the crutch was free to move. The pallets had been polished slightly off square from one side to another but were functional with crisp transition between the faces. I put the movement together without the motion works, lubricated it and set it in beat, and it ran for eight days on the stand as it should. So today I thought I'd assemble the motion works and set up the striking. The striking train was lubricated with HP1300 as far as the gathering pallet arbor. The final two pivots were lubricated with 9010. Setting up the timing of the strikes went well but to me the rate of the striking is shockingly bad. I do need to improve the position of the hammer as it's tone is a bit dull, but the big issue is that It's just too fast, banging on the gong like a disco beat - I've linked to a short recording of it here: Super fast striking

I switched the lubricant for the whole train to HP1300 as an experiment and it slowed the striking down a little but it still seems hurried as you can see on this link: Slightly slower striking . I've checked the friction clutch of the fan. It seems functional and similar to others I've looked at.  If you block the fan, the clock won't strike. The weights are similar for striking and going and in any case one was helpfully marked with an S.  I'm not sure what to do next. I have a few ideas:

Bigger fly fan  - probably the simplest approach. It can't be much bigger though as there isn't much room

Lighter weight  - not sure how to approach this. The weights on the clock are matching. Each is filled to the brim with lead and they are similar in weight. Should the striking one be lighter?

Even heavier lubricant. Seems like a bodge, surely the speed control should be by air resistance? 

Accept it. Perhaps the clock is meant to be brusque? 

What I can't understand is why this is happening. Could the fly have been swapped? Are the lubricants still too light? Has an incorrect weight been fitted - should the striking train weight be only half or two thirds full of lead? Or is this clock designed this way?

All ideas gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

    

[oldhippy]

I don't know what you are worried about saying it strikes to fast. It is fine. If the fan had been lose and still rotating after the strike had finished that will cause the strike to run fast. The other would be the weight load if the weight was too heavy that also would make it strike fast. Setting up a Vienna can be a problem you have various ways making sure the pendulum is in the correct place and center to the scale which is just below the bottom of the pendulum.   

[Boz]

Thanks @Oldhippy, I don't have the experience to know if it is OK or not. Its faster than the strike on anything else I've come but that isn't a lot.