Junghans old mechanical clock advice please!

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:56 am     Post subject: Junghans old mechanical clock advice please!

First of all, sorry for my bad way of expressing myself in English. I finally brought home my great-grandmothers clock. It's a Junghans as far as the markings say. It's fully functional, stikes and shows accurate time.
The thing is, I have no experience whatsoever with mechanical cloks. I only know you musn't wind it too much or it will break. . How should I wind it up? When I first winded it up with the key, it began to feel heavy after turning it for just 1 circle. And like that the clock worked only for 45 minutes, though it should work atleast 12 hours before you have to wind it again. I'm afraid to wind it up too much and break the spring. Does it have to feel quite heavy to turn and when do I know to stop turning it? There's two holes for the key, the way I see it, one is for making it show time and winding up the other hole is for making it strike? It strikes 1 time at every half and full hour.
Please share any information about old clocks such as these. How to maintain them and what are their weaknesses.

Also, I don't know how old it is to be honest, guessing about 1900+, what do you think?

Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:40 pm     Post subject:

Beautiful real wooden clock. Edwardian - 1930's. Yes Junghans striking movement .

These have very strong mainsprings when new and it probably needs a service and new springs. I come across loads of these here in the UK and clean, bush holes and fit new springs because they 'set' with age.

It should go for 8 days when new but at least 7 now it's a bit old. Depending on how much work needs doing to the movement will depend on how much it will cost to repair.

It won't 'break' when you wind it up because you will 'feel' the mainsprings won't wind anymore so that's when you stop.
Yes one hole is for winding the time and the other the strike.
It should strike once on the half hour and the amount of the hour on the hour.

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 12:22 am     Post subject:



Thank you. Since it hasn't been used daily in decades, It's most certain that it needs a service, just have to find an experienced clocksmith here, most of them are quite young. It also needs cleaning.
Maybe the full hour - one time strike of my clock is the "handprint" of the former clocksmith who worked on it, because from what I've heard, my grandparents removed the striking mechanisms since they lived in quite a small household. Then about ten years ago my father sent it to a clocksmith to make it strike again.
This clock is quite special for me, since not much things in our family survived the 45' soviet occupation, especially because one of my family member was the president of Estonia in 1928 and therefore half of the family was considered as a threat to soviet regime and sent to syberia for 14 years with all assets confiscated.