Innards

Have you ever wondered what is inside a marble mantle clock - no, of course you haven't but it makes a wet day blip! This mechanism is about 150 years old and is French. It will easily last another 150 years. The stamp on the back is a quality mark awarded to the best manufacturers, in this case Japy Frères. These mechanisms usually are unworn and just need disassembling and cleaning. Don't try it at home as if you separate the plates with the springs wound, bits will break and hit you in the eye with considerable force! Lots of the parts have quaint names like the crutch, the pallet arbor, the back cock or the count wheel. Getting it all apart is easy but putting it back together is the tricky bit as all the striking wheels have to mesh in an exact way for the striking to work properly and then getting the top plate back on is very fiddly.