The Complete Clock & Pendulum Repair Manual: Understanding, Regulating, and Repairing Antique Wall, Longcase, and Mantel Clocks —Movements, Escapements, Striking Trains, and Restoration, Step by Step

Open the case back. Understand the movement. Repair it. An inherited longcase clock, a comtoise found in a barn, a cuckoo clock silent for twenty years: this manual teaches you to understand, regulate, and repair an antique clock or pendulum yourself, step by step, whether weight-driven or spring-driven. Written for the serious hobbyist restorer, this guide takes you from identifying the piece all the way to the final regulation of its rate. Across 30 progressive chapters, you will learn to: Identify and date a clock from its movement plate, its fusee, and its marks; Tell apart the great regional traditions: comtoise, cuckoo, Vienna regulator, English longcase; Understand the recoil escapement, the deadbeat (Graham) escapement, and the Brocot escapement; Regulate the pendulum and its thermal compensation (gridiron, mercury, invar); Repair count-wheel and rack striking trains, and cuckoo mechanisms; Safely disassemble, clean, bush, and reassemble a movement; Restore dials, hands, glass, and cases with the caution an antique piece deserves. Includes technical diagrams, real photography, a bilingual glossary, and a directory of major manufacturers. Never force a mechanism that resists: understand first, then repair. The manufacturer names mentioned are used in a purely nominative and documentary sense; this is an independent publication, not affiliated with the houses named. See the full note on the copyright page.