Everything looks to be in perfect alignment, no visible wear on any of the parts, etc., but if I wind the clock and let it tick it is still uneven, and slows to a stop pretty quickly/easily. I tried stripping the time train again and following the beat setting instructions linked above.
#WESTCLOX BIG BEN FULL#
You were both correct in that the balance wheel was not getting close to a full rotation, and ticking unevenly. I had a chance to work on the clock again yesterday. I appreciate the resources - this is all very valuable reading that didn't come up on any of my Google searches. Hi all! Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and apologies for my delay in replying. You might enjoy this website CloxMonkey Home Page These usually can be made to run again but it can be a very challenging first clock for a beginner. Westclox pivots seldom wear, but pivot holes and other parts do. Finally, and we never like to hear this, this is a cheap clock that was never designed to have a long life. If you removed the hair spring from the balance staff you will definitely need to set the "beat" as previously suggested. That is, when you pin the end of the hair spring and guide it through the regulator it must not be pulled off center. The hair spring must be flat and centered. This is hard to see without good magnification and even harder to correct if there is a problem. The cone-shapped holes in the balance screws need to be smooth and true and clean all the way to the point of the cone. One critical area is the points on the ends of the balance wheel staff - these must not be rounded off and should be sharp and polished bright. Goal should be 360 degrees total rotation and not less than about 270 degrees. If that is the case I would not expect stable reliable operation. It is hard to see in the video but it looks like the balance wheel has only about 180 degrees or less total rotation. Also make sure the movement is properly aligned in the case and not being forced or pressured that could cause the frame to be twisted.
If the clock runs out of the case but not in the case make sure the hands are pressed on far enough that they don't touch the glass.
#WESTCLOX BIG BEN INSTALL#
(Special tools are usually not required to remove or install Westclox springs.) The width and thickness need to be pretty close but sometimes a longer spring can be cut off as required.
The best way to determine what spring to order is usually to remove the old spring and measure the thickness, width, and length. If the spring isn't broken its probably not the problem, although in one of the pictures it does appear to be unhooked.Ģ. Some pictures I took prior to disassembly, and a video of when I got it ticking are attached:ġ. I know it doesn't make a ton of sense financially to invest in fixing this clock, but it's been really fun! I can see myself wanting to keep doing this down the road. If it likely is the mainspring, how do I go about figuring out which one to order? There isn't much info about the Style 8 Big Ben's online.Do you think I should try replacing the mainspring? Don't have the tools to do it but I'd be open to ordering them.These are my questions, for anybody who has any thoughts on what I should do here: It'll go off for about a minute before it needs to be rewound. I can wind the clock up, the alarm will go off if I turn it on, etc. The alarm works completely fine, as far as I can tell. This clock has a single wind / mainspring for both the alarm and time mechanisms.After putting back in the case, it will only tick for a couple seconds max before it stops. Reassembled it all - got it ticking for a solid twenty minutes when it was just the movement, but moving it at all made it stop.It's not broken, but I noticed some minimal rust on the bottom of the barrel Opened up the barrel to check on the mainspring but decided not to mess with removing it without proper tools.Lightly oiled per instructions I found on a Big Ben repair site. Checked for wear on pivots - it was minimal, if any.Took everything completely apart and cleaned all parts.This is a breakdown of what I've done with it so far:
I'm completely new to clock repair, but I like tinkering with things, so I've been doing research and playing around with it the last couple of days. He used to have the same one in college so we bought it for next to nothing, and I've been trying to fix it. I recently found a Westclox Big Ben ( Style 8) with my dad at a thrift store that wouldn't tick.
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