Clearning and reassembly of "La Duchesse"

Now that the pendulum has been replaced for "La Duchesse", it's time to clean and reassemble it.

The movement is a standard two-spring American movement with a count wheel striking mechanism.

Here's another few looks at the movement to make sure I didn't forget anything later upon reassembly!

After taking down the mainsprings (carefully held in place with wire), all of the wheels were removed and cleaned in the ultrasonic cleaner.  The plates were scrubbed with soap and water (avoiding any polishing of anything!) to get the old oil off.  At this point I noticed some interesting things: (1) there are no oil sinks to speak of, (2) there is only minor wear, most of the pivot holes pass the broach test outright, those that didn't were easily opened slightly to round, and (3) the mainsprings were apparently unlubricated.  I also took apart the mainsprings to inspect them -- they were essentially in mint condition.  Dimensions: 3/4" x 0.017" x didn't bother to measure. but they make about 9 full turns when winding

I polished all pivots by hand, using the lathe to hold everything steady.  (No power applied!)

Here are all of the parts cleaned and polished on the bench, ready for reassembly.

Movement reassembly was straightforward except that I had to take several tries to get the warning wheel in the right spot so that striking finished correctly.  Annoyingly, each try displaced all of the pivots, but it wasn't anything major.

The final repair was to fix the door hinge.  The pin was missing, so I made a replacement.  I suspect the original was brass, but I made a new one from steel.  It seems like someone had forced the door downward when it was opened, which cracked off the top hinge pipe on the dial.  I made a replacement one.  The original hinge was clearly soldered in place, but since the dial was painted with gold paint and ceramic, I didn't want to risk heating it.  So instead, I used some sturdy epoxy, which I think was reasonably unobtrusive.  I also had to re-broach the two original hinge pipes because they were warped off in a bad way.  (You can see that in the picture below to some extent.)  Even still, the door doesn't totally snap in place, but at least it closes.

And here is the assembled clock, sitting on my bench.  It's running now and just happily struck 11:00pm.  (However, I must protest Ansonia's choice of an incongruous kitchen-timer-sounding bell for this otherwise somewhat pretentious clock!) 

Replacement pendulum for "La Duchesse"

Since the pendulum on the La Duchesse clock is missing, I am attempting to replace it.  I started by threading a length of 1/8" steel rod with 6-32 threads.  That's at least a standard size for which I could either make a knurled nut or buy one.

I find it easiest to thread by hand on the lathe (with the power off).  That way everything stays neatly aligned.  There are markings on the movement saying "3 3/4", which I take to be roughly the length of the lower rod.  At least, that makes the rod just longer than appears to fit nicely in the case.  It's easier to shorten a rod in any event...

The pendulum rod is segmented.  The upper portion is attached to the suspension spring and the crutch, and is also not missing.  The lower half fits a hook on the upper half.  Judging by how the Ansonia Crystal Regulator was made, the lower rod is flattened at the top and drilled to receive the hook.  So, to that end, I heated and hammer the top of the now-threaded steel rod flat.

I center punched the flat, and tried to drill it with the appropriate size drill.  Since I was using a hand drill (I don't have a drill press, and didn't try to set up the work in the lathe... probably should have), I had trouble with the bit slipping.

So I gave up, and bent a hook in the lower half as well.  This was now easy since the steel was flat and annealed.  However, it was too wind to receive the hook in the top rod.  So I filled the hook in the lower rod to fit the upper hook nicely.

Once filed, I hardened and tempered the rod to blue.

I center drilled and turned a bob from a piece of lead (total weight around 1 oz).

I was initially concerned about turning lead being problematic, but it went nicely enough and the surface finish was good.  Since the bob will be concealed inside the case, I didn't feel a need to attempt to polish it.  Eye protection (as usual) was a must, but especially so since the chips were launched everywhere... messy clean-up.

Continued work on Ansonia "La Duchesse"

Since the case on this clock was in really bad shape, I disassembled the case, stripped off the old paint, and cleaned off the rust.  I then painted all of it with black enamel paint and reassembled it...

The case had gold detail, which turned out to be gold paint.  After the black paint dried, I tried to add the gold detail back.  I did the painting with a toothpick, but that wasn't even fine enough.  I might redo the paint.

The case has a hinged glass door, but one of the hinges has been broken off.

The door hinge isn't quite aligned with the case one, which will take a little thought to realign it.

I turned a new hinge from brass, in anticipation of aligning and attaching it to the case to replace the missing one.

Ansonia "La Duchesse" initial examination

This clock is from my sister's landlady.  Here's a link to a similar model.  Inside the clock, behind the back plate is handwritten in pencil "H. Paul, June 26/85."  Presumably this means that this clock was completed on June 26, 1885.

The outside of the clock isn't in good condition.  The case is rusted, with much of the original black enamel having fallen off.

 One of the hinges has broken off, and it seems that the owner used tape to hold the glass in place as a result.

The dial surface is porcelain, which cleaned easily with dish soap and a toothbrush.

Also, it seems that the back of the bezel rusted onto the dial's gilded edge.  Rust is remarkably difficult to remove from gilding, at least without damaging the gilding...  I've removed what I could by carefully brushing with a toothbrush.

The two lions on either side of the movement appear to have been painted with a gold paint of some sort (apparently not gilding).  They were nearly black with gunk/rust.  After spending most of the afternoon in the ultrasonic cleaner, I think most of the gunk is off, but it has revealed that the gold paint is mostly gone.

The movement is missing its pendulum.  I think because the markings on the movement indicate "3 3/4", this means that the pendulum ought to be about 3.75 inches or so.  Nothing else seems amiss on the movement, though we'll see!

Here are a few other views of the movement...