Setting up a Longcase clock

So folks, when you get the clock out of the crate, if you line her up in the position of the wall that you like, this is the kind of wood I tend to screw to the wall. Make that tight to the wall and then I tend to screw the clock to it, so get that in behind it. Put a little mark maybe on the wall to show where you like the position of the clock, because once you start to screw this to the wall you're going to have to move the clock out of the way. Now you can see there are holes here already and that's from previous drillings and screwings to the wall. Anyway, that's just a little bit of 2x1, about 4 or 5 inches long. Two roll plugs into the wall and then put a screw or two screws through the back of the clock to stabilize it onto that. You wouldn't tie the Queen Mary to it but it would certainly be stable enough for your home. Go! You'll use the pendulum as a plumb line in setting the clock up. So feed it through here, be very careful of this spring at the top of the pendulum, you don't want to damage that. Feed it through and it attaches from up here where my fingertip is, but it goes through this crutch at the back of the clock mechanism and the brass block will sit in there and the pendulum spring will hook inside this block at the back, we call it the back cup. It's like two fingers and the blade sits in between. So down here you can view the pendulum hanging as a plumb line. It needs to be near the back but not touching the back. If it touches the back it'll scrape off and the clock will not run and won't properly. So a little bit of clearance, now that is my position now, not too far forward otherwise the weights hanging on the pulleys will lodge here. So there's a small amount of space between where my fingertips are here and the back of the box and both the pendulum and the weights must fit in there. So this is your starting position, you have about a quarter of an inch or so between the pendulum and the backboard. Now that the clock case is screwed to the wall we're going to put the weights on. First put the key in and we're going to hold the line a little bit taut, that's the line coming out of the barrel of the mechanism, it's like a fishing reel up there and then we are going to revolve the key making sure that the line ends up running from rear to front along the spiral of the barrel and we're constantly keeping a little bit of tension on the line with your right hand until the pendulums, sorry, until the pulley arrives at a manageable height here, the height where my hands are. Now this is how a pulley goes, the line goes around the wheel like so. Oftentimes you'd see somebody doing this which is really boring. Now around the line and that hook here is where the weight hangs. So the heavier of the two weights if there is a difference goes on the left, it takes more energy to drive the striking side which is on the left and that is how your weight will be placed. Okay so we now have the two weights on, you repeat the process of the shoulder and the left hand load. So what is a full wind? We'll get to that. There's enough room here for the weights to clear the front and the pendulum to clear the back and that's altered by moving the bottom of the clock in or out. So if I move the bottom of the clock out what happens is the pendulum lies against the backboard. So you find your spot, just enough freedom at the backboard, now you can screw the clock to your piece of wood. So what's a full wind? A full wind is this position. Now in this position that pulley is actually about here and it's about this much away from the board that the mechanism sits on. That pulley must never hit the board that the mechanism sits on, we call that the seat board. If it does hit the seat board what will happen is you can't lift the weight any longer and you'll be pulling on the gears of the clock and you don't want that. Okay so now that you've gone on both sides this is where the weight should be visible and you can relate that to your hinge so that you always know exactly where you are. When the top door is open you can't see this, this is only a first run thing where the pulleys are visible. Once the hood is on you won't be able to see that anymore, you've got to relate where the weights are to perhaps the hinge or put a little chalk mark or something on the weight and you'll know that is the height that it should go. And if you look at the barrel it's full of line running from rear to front in a spiral very evenly and that's a full wind it relates to where this weight is so everything is sitting comfortably there at the moment. So that's the winding. So we're going to talk about the pendulum and the pendulum relates to the time keeping and also the tuning what we call setting the beat. So setting the beat when you have it swinging, I'll just mic this up so you can hear it more clearly, you've got that nice even metronomic sound tick tock tick tock. If your floor is a little bit uneven what's going to happen is you'll get a lopsided sound. Let's see if we can give you that. It's a bit off sound so you might have to square up your clock a little bit lifting one side or the other just to give you that sound. There is a way of doing it internally but that's a more professional thing. Now after that the pendulum relates to the fast and slow of the clock and that's here. So the length of the pendulum governs fast and slow so the higher the bob is the faster it's going to go the lower it is the slower it will go and it's governed by this little thread and just there. So if you turn that screw to the left it will allow the bob down and the lower it goes the slower it will be so the lower the slower. So the screw to the left allows the nut to come down the bob comes down and the lower it goes the slower the clock will be and conversely the other side goes fast. Now hold your pendulum to the side and let it swing that gives you a ticking and she's away now she's working and if you decide to stop the clock for any reason and usually when you're going away at holidays or if there's a time change winter and summer time you need to stop the clock just put your finger against it and restrict it like so that's it shut down switched on and off switched on switched off okay So the setting of the hands it's always forward only like so and you only use the minute hand that's the only thing you'll interact with so you just need to be careful going past the hour hand that you don't catch it with your finger so it's minute hand forward only watch your fingernails don't scrape off the paint and around six minutes or three minutes to the there's something going on in the background there there's a little bit of a click at this point click and a whirr and we call that the warning click through the hour let it rain we'll do that once more because big ben over there was getting in the way so off we go around with the hand about three minutes the hour little click there just there you don't have to stop you need to go through slowly enough for it to actually occur they call it the warning and it's allowing wheels and levers to move into place and being prepared for strike and then you come up click through the hour and let it rain once it's wrong it's correct number you can move on and say it's 10 past three you can move on to 10 past three but always allow the striking to fulfill its function don't interfere with it and certainly don't go whizzing around because you're in a bit of a hurry so in fitting the hood on the hood fits on like a drawer and the runner is left and right just here being an arch style if you look from the back there it's got a little bit of a cavity at the top but you must lift it so that this doesn't catch on the dial dial lives in here so we lift it over the dial a little bit and then seat it on the collars of the case and just slide it on and that's it there sitting home sits very nicely original glass of that beautiful thing so there are decorative pillars here don't hold the clock by that they only are glued or pinned these are decorative hold it by a solid section of the timberwork timber decorations here don't put any pressure on any of those because they're only glued in place because the decoration not structural okay yeah so finally there's your clock set in place and at the end of the week when you need to wind it you have the top door open you'll have the bottom door open you'll be able to wind it from here and view the weights don't just wind it until the weights stop remember where the weights live starting and stopping is just like so off you go happy days