This is the first update for a while on the clock, but we are still working in it. It was a bit cold for spending long in the workshop over winter. Then, as things picked up in spring, there were plenty of other priorities. As well as creating the pattern for the pendulum support casting we now have all the key measurements and positions worked out for the escapement. We have also started work on another missing wheel (but more on that in another post to come).

When the clock was converted to electric drive it was became little more than a gear train from the motor to the drive shaft. It no longer used a pendulum or escapement and unfortunately these were not kept with the clock. The pendulum would have been mounted on a large cast iron wishbone-shaped casting at the back of the clock. The arms of the escapement were also attached to this structure.

The pattern for the casting was made out of a couple of chunks of pine joined together. The basic shape was cut out with a band-saw. A small amount of hand carving was required for fine details and wax fillets were applied to the recessed front edge. Dimensions for the arch were taken from the clock of St. Alkmund’s Church, Duffield. The measurements were taken in situ, from the top of a ladder, while the clock was going. As a result they may not be quite 100% accurate, but very close to the original.

My father approached a couple of local foundries about casting the pattern. I was surprised there were any local foundries left, let alone a choice, but then Derbyshire was the birthplace of the industrial revolution! Neither of us really knew how much it was likely to cost but we were disappointed with the first quote of over £160. In the end we managed to get it for £55, with a 3 week turnaround. We’re still waiting and I’ll post pictures once we get the finished article. It’s going to need a little machining to complete. The base needs to be made flat and a v-shaped groove cut across the top for the pendulum to sit in. It also needs to accommodate two brass plates, one on the front and one on the back, to mount the arms of the escapement.

After examining the St. Alkmund’s clock we are able to start making some progress again. However, as the going train isn’t exactly the same as ours, we still don’t have all the information we need. Some details still need to be worked out. It’s also worth noting that even if it had had the same as the parts that we currently have, there is no guarantee that our missing parts would have matched – the engineer at Smith of Derby said there was a lot of variation between clocks. We may never know exactly what the original train was on this clock, so we will have to go with something sensible.

Yesterday, my father discovered something interesting we had never noticed before. The missing front arbour support, for the missing arbour, was attached to the frame by two bolts. The same support on the clock at St. Alkmund’s is attached by one bolt. That may not sound very important, and it’s possible we are reading too much into it, but of all the pictures of Smith flat bed turret clocks of this vintage we can find there is only one other that has two bolts for this support. The other is the clock at Trinity Collage, Cambridge. That clock has an extra dial at the end of this arbour and a second hand – something else the Smith engineer mentioned our clock could/ should have had. It is the presence and position of the extra dial that requires the two side bolts for fixing the support, rather than a single bolt through a front “foot”. (I’ve previously mentioned how similar I though our clock was to the Trinity clock (except for their unique fourth train) and I did contact the keeper for more details about the clock, but unfortunately never received a reply.)

So, if we assume from this observation that our clock had a second hand then that fixes the rotation speed of the missing arbour to one rpm. As the lantern pinion at the front end of this arbour must turn the 120 tooth wheel at a rate of one tooth every seven and a half seconds then that pinion must have eight trundles. Suddenly we have two less unknowns in the train!

I previously suggested some options for the missing parts of the train, but if we take the above (60 second rotation, 8 pin pinion) as correct we can improve the list of options:

• 1.5 second swing, 60:9 ratio at escapement.
• 1.25 second swing, 72:9 ratio at escapement.
• 1.125 second swing, 80:9 ratio at escapement.
• 1 second swing, 90:9 ratio at escapement.

The engineer at Smith’s did suggest a 90:9 ratio, but I find it hard to imagine this clock only had a one second pendulum. That’s only about a metre, the same as a typical long case (“grandfather”) clock. The pendulum at St. Alkmund’s is 1.5 seconds or about 2.24m. The Trinity clock pendulum is described as being “2 metres” but it’s not clear how they are measuring it. The length of a pendulum is measured from the pivot to the centre of mass and so the overall physical length of the pendulum may be quite a bit longer. 2m is not a standard/ common length so I suspect it’s an approximation of the physical length rather than an accurate “functional length”.

As we’ll never know what this clock originally had we can choose one of the above options, keeping in mind the practicalities of the pendulum length. Only the 1 second pendulum would fit the clock on its current stand and would be the most convenient length, but that feels too short to me. The 1.5 second pendulum is far too long to be practical, so our current intention is to make it with a 1.25 second pendulum and 72:9 ratio. We just need to make sure that actually fits around the rest of the escapement mechanism.

Unfortunately here has been little progress on our clock over the summer as we have been stuck on the escapement. However, we have finally managed to track down a suitable clock for us to model our missing escapement on. The clock is of course a J Smith & Sons, Derby and is of pretty much the same size and design as our own. In the end we didn’t have to go far to find it either, about 5 miles from my house is St Alkmund’s Church, Duffield. Where, coincidentally (or probably not), I will be getting married next year. I must thank Mike Banks (previous clock keeper), Luke Heaton (tower captain) & James Buchanan (assistant minister) for making this visit possible.

The clock is slightly older than ours at 1897 (vs. 1922), and there are a number of differences, but many of the important details are the same.

Some differences:

• The going train is geared differently, unfortunately I can’t say exactly what it is because it’s very difficult to count teeth on a working clock, up a ladder, without touching it or putting chalk marks on it.
• The going train winding arbour passes through the frame rather than being mounted under it (the other two trains are mounted under, as are all three on our clock). This seems to be the norm on these slightly older models.
• The larger lantern pinions on our clock are more like regular pinions (but with closed ends) on this clock.
• It has a five bell chime, ours has eight (although, unlike us, St Alkmund’s actually have the bells to go with it, in fact they have an impressive ten bells in total).

Now we have measurements for lots of details we didn’t before, as well as having actually seen one up close (which makes a big difference). We are now in the process of drawing up the missing parts and planning the next steps of our restoration.

Here are some pictures of various parts of the clock we wanted a closer look at.