Longcase (Movement Photos)

Here are a few photos of the movement from the Allan longcase. As you can see, it hasn't been in working condition for quite some time. It has numerous breaks and a few repairs.

The arrows point out a replaced (ugly but functional) count hook, a poor solder repair to the rack, and the horribly bent calendar wheel (on its bent post).



Here you can see an unusual choice for a gut-line end stop (the other one is a bone-shaped wooden block), and the broken section of the seat board.



The cracked end of the bell stand.



Side view:



And I have to point out the stunningly beautiful click springs. I've seen a handful of longcase movements, and they are almost never this fancy. Often they will be a simple shallow curve, or a plain rectangle.



Here is the seatboard with the movement removed.



And while it was in the clamp to reattach the broken section. Note the candle wax drippings (which could be up to 100 years old). The perfectionist in me wants to scrape those off and clean the board, but it's just SO NEAT that I'm leaving them there.

Test Stand (Video)

I just shot a video of the current clocks on my test stand and I thought I'd share it on YouTube (since I have quite a few clockies on it), and with my Clockmaking Blog buddies (that's you guys!)



I will probably go over more details about the custom built clock test stand in the future, but here's a quick breakdown:

The main part of the stand is two rectangular frames that are glued together in each corner with a lap joint. The rest of the stand is simply two bottom legs (each made of two pieces glued together), and two upper braces. The entire thing is designed with the use of knock-down hex key bolts, and can be stored away fairly easily. The stand is also equipped with adjustable feet on the bottom. I made a set of 6 notched cleats that sit on the top, and can be used to hold seatboards or to support loose longcase type movements. In addition, movements that are back-mounted can be set up on boards (as in the case of the Vienna movement on the right) and clamped to the vertical rails.

At maximum capacity, you could probably have as much as 4 clocks on top, and up to two smaller movements per vertical rail, so 12 movements? I probably wouldn't ever need to set up that many at a time, though.

The main frames are 36" x 48" which is a decent size for general use. It could easily be made wider. The wood I used is unfinished White Ash that was barely milled from 4/4 stock (so the pieces are between 7/8" and 15/16" thick). Ash was used because it's an incredibly strong yet incredibly cheap hardwood. You could easily put about 300 Lbs on this stand with no issues.