Setting up Bevel Gears on an Elliott 9-tube mechanism

One of my hard and fast rules is that I remove as many screws as possible before putting clock parts in a clock cleaning solution. This has always served me well - it eliminates the risk that a screw will be corroded in place, making it very hard to remove down the road. Of course, I know that I must take careful notes so I know which screws go where. As an aside, this is especially important with earlier clocks, the ones with hand made screws: It is best if each screw goes back in the hole from which it came – visually identical screws oft times are not actually all that identical.

But, in the case of a 9-tube Elliott mechanism that I had in for repair, this hard and fast rule gave me a chance to do a bit more work.

The screws in question are those which adjust the fitment of the bevel gears that drive the pinned drum in a 9 tube mechanism. These screws, as well as the two bevel gears in question, are shown in the first two pictures in this gallery:

As you can see, the second plot, with the screw turned in 5 quarters of a turn resulted in nearly 3 seconds between several of the strikes. Actually, I had even longer pauses with the screw in 6 quarter turns, but the train stopped several times, so I figured I’d just show the plot for the 5 quarter turns. <br />
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Note that the points on the first plot that are around 1 second between strikes are mostly the measure of the time between subsequent quarter strikes – There is a short pause between each set of quarter strikes on most tubular bell clocks.<br />
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Next I averaged the time between hammer strikes for each of the screw positions (averaging only the time between the hammer strikes that are part of a quarter strike – leaving out the time between quarters). This resulted in the following plot:

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As you can see, the second plot, with the screw turned in 5 quarters of a turn resulted in nearly 3 seconds between several of the strikes. Actually, I had even longer pauses with the screw in 6 quarter turns, but the train stopped several times, so I figured I’d just show the plot for the 5 quarter turns.

Note that the points on the first plot that are around 1 second between strikes are mostly the measure of the time between subsequent quarter strikes – There is a short pause between each set of quarter strikes on most tubular bell clocks.

Next I averaged the time between hammer strikes for each of the screw positions (averaging only the time between the hammer strikes that are part of a quarter strike – leaving out the time between quarters). This resulted in the following plot:

turns