March 2008 Newsletter

March 2008 Newsletter

OFFICERS:

PRESIDENT:                     Dave Grau,      tictocfinewatches@verizon.net

V. PRESIDENT:                 Al Takatsch,   al_taka@yahoo.com

SECRETARY:                     Dave Hannemann  david-patricia@verizon.net

TREASURER:                    Stan Craig,      timewatch@peoplepc.com

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS:   Earl Knight,   earljan@hughes.net

DIRECTORS:

Jerry Kincaid (07)                      tictoctwo@aol.com

Brett Louis (07)                         blouis@hst.nasa.gov

Dan Spath (07)                           daspath@verizon.net

George Tresansky (07)          geotnant@aol.com

Jack Kennan (08)                       jgkennan@webtv.net

George Painter (08)                gpainter@adelphia.net

Next Meeting

Upcoming Event:

The Horological Association of Virginia is holding their annual convention April 25 - 27 in Williamsburg, VA.

It will include an Auction Saturday night that has all kinds of watch and clock tools. Quite often the tools are bargain priced.
On Saturday, the clock speaker will be David Lindow and the watch speaker will be Tom Schomaker.
More information is on the HAV web site - www.havhome.org. On the upper left side of their web page is a link to their newsletter with the convention information.
March 25 is the last day for very reduced rates at the convention hotel.

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Welcome to Spring!

First, thank you Bob Rothen for your excellent talk on the use of the depthing tool.

Coming up during our workshops in April, we’ll have a lecture/discussion on the adjustment of hairsprings.

If you have something of interest you’d like to discuss at a business meeting or workshop, let Al or I know and we’ll allot the time you need for your presentation.

At the next workshop, please let me know what you would want as the topic(s) for the May half-day workshop. You can also send me an e-mail to let me know of your preferences.

I’d like to remind everyone that if you have anything you’d like to sell, please bring in your items for sale at our new HAM Mini-Mart.

See you at the workshop on Monday, March 24, 7:30p, at the Ellicott City Senior Center.

Thank you.

Regards,

Dave

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From the Shop: Al Takatsch

I wanted to thank Bob Rothen for his lecture on depthing tools. These tools are invaluable when you have a movement that's been botched up by someone else and the wheels and pinions are not engaging correctly and its up to us to bring this movement back to life.

My latest disaster (challenge) came to me for repair of normal wear including multible problems from previous repairs by someone else.

Its a Junghans Carriage Clock; I appreciate a well-made clock.

Some of the following pictures may give you the heeby-geebys, so if you have a weak heart stop now.

Three lantern gears have wrong sized rungs and oblong holes drilled from the wheel side to extract rungs. To make the clock work, solder was used throughout to align rungs and stop them from falling out.
One arbor has a mauled detent cam which needed retiming so instead of moving it a couple of teeth, someone twisted and loosened the cam on the arbor. Solder, the magic elixir was also found on the lantern.
Two wheels which looked alike from the chime and strike side were swapped so only a fully wound spring could drive them. There was a bad clicking from the wheel/lantern engagement as the teeth were bottoming out.
The escape wheel has a little excess tilt; it falls out of the pivot hole and won't stand up.
At least six bushings.
Three set mainsprings.
Bad wear on the chiming idler gear.
Need to fabricate a small hand that was missing which turns chiming and strike on and off.
Clock was dropped off the mantel by an inquisitive nephew. Lots of abrasions and cracks.

This is all I can remenber for now, I'll update everyone in April on the final tally.

Here are some pictures.

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Webmaster David Grau dg33@verizon.net