Chime help

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:29 pm     Post subject: Chime help

Hey guys,

I need some help. I bought a GF Clock from craigslist, only a 100 bucks so I can't complain.

The movement is a Hermes 451-050.

After much googling and tinkering I got the pendulum swinging again and it keeps fairly good time. But the quarterly chimes start at the 15 min marks but runs relentlessly for about 12 mins each time. So basically it never shuts up. I took the weight off the right train so it would stop chiming.

The left hourly chime I'm still troubleshooting. Basically it didn't chime at all. So I was poking around inside the movement and by wierd stroke of luck managed to get it to chime 12 times at 12 pm. So I know the train isn't jammed right? Then at 1 pm it chimed 1 time. I thought it was fixed until 6:50 pm when I got home, and noticed at 6:55, it chimed 1 time.... Maybe I didn't fix it?!?

I don't care too much about the 15 min chimes, they were annoying but I really want the hourly chime to work right, please help??

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:59 pm     Post subject: Chime help UPDATE?

OK... clock chimes every huor now but only one dong... actually it's more like at the :57 mark, but that's ok. Why won't it chime the number of times for the hour??

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 1:37 pm     Post subject: Final Update - Now I do need advice...

OK, I found that the hour does trip a lever but apparently, not hard enough.

If I go in with a screwdriver, and tap teh trip level, I can get it to chime the correct number.

I just need it to schwack it harder otherwise it will only hit the first gong and just quit spinning. Now what?

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 3:48 pm     Post subject: Somewhat fixed...

So I was thinking about what I have done and I found out that by taking out the weight on the quarter chime mech, the clock doesn't have the ummph to chime the hour on its own.

So I put the weight back in and I was right, the hourly chime worked perfectly but I was fearing the original problem which promted me to take off the weight was going to come back.

The original problem was that the quarter chimes would start and not stop. Then the strangest thing happened, it chimed the four, notes and STOPPED!! WAHOO! So far so good, it seems to be stopping now.

Since I must have the quarter chimes working to have the hour chimes, the question now is, if it starts and doesn't stop, how do you fix that?? Perhaps Kelly can jump back in and help out?!? LOL!

Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:45 pm     Post subject:

Sounds as though the movement could use a good cleaning/oiling for starters...