Wall clock strikes the hour when minute hand points to 3

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:08 pm     Post subject: Wall clock strikes the hour when minute hand points to 3

A cheap German made 8 day wall clock striking the hour and the half hour. I took it down to clean and oil it and now I find the above problem; take the minute hand off and turn it through 90 degrees? It isn't on a square but a rectangular shaft. I can't say if it was ok before I meddled with it because I always kept the chimes unwound before and will in the future because it sounds like the clappers of hell but..., any ideas?

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:57 pm     Post subject:

I have never heard of a center shaft with a rectangular mount for the minute hand... Is this a mechanical style (key-wind) movement or is this a movement that runs on batteries?

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:46 am     Post subject:

Hello Chris, it's a mechanical movement, eight day, key wind, pendulum job. It has worked fine for the twenty odd years I've owned it, (from new). The chimes worked fine when I bothered to wind them but after a while of being woken up in the night by a sound like an explosion in a tube factory I let the chimes have a long rest.
If nobody can help with an answer to this I'll just do the same again.

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 1:49 pm     Post subject:

Still odd that the minute hand mount is not square (at least, it seems odd to me). It could be that your minute hand has an adjustable hub on the backside which turns independantly from the actual hand itself. This is how we adjust and synchronize Klockit mechanical minute hands.

If your hand has an adjustable hub, this would be the process you would follow: Rotate the minute hand until the clock chimes (remember to stop at every chime cycle and allow the movement to complete the chime cycle before advancing again). Rotate the hand until you reach the hourly chime and strike. Make reference of where the minute hand is in relation to the 12 o'clock position (in your case, I believe this is the 3 o'clock position). Remove the minute hand and grip the hub (on the backside of the hand) with a pair of needle nose pliers. Keeping the hub stationary, rotate the hand itself forward or backward (whichever way we need to go so that our hand will be at 12 when re-mounted and the hourly chime begins). Re-mount the hand and advance it once again (stopping for any quarterly chime cycles). Rotate to the 12 o'clock position to see if things are synchronized. Note that an additional "tweak" adjustment may be necessary for perfect synchronization. If your minute hand has an adjustable hub, you should be able to correct the synchronization between the chimes and time. It just may take a couple of adjustments...

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:16 pm     Post subject:

Thank you Chris, I will have a much closer look at it.