28-11-2023, 09:06 PM
I first built my Sextus a bit over three years ago and after some tweaking and adjusting had it running fairly reliably. I spent quite a lot of time playing with the pallet tooth shape to get the pallets to properly lock the escapement wheel and then release it; as part of this I also added a very small brass weight to the LH pallet to get it to swing away from the wheel teeth more cleanly. However, it was hanging in a temporary location on the back of a door and one day I forgot it was there and shut the door, catching the pendula on the door frame. After that, it did not run for more than a few minutes at a time!
It was put to one side and I have just started getting it running again. I think the frame had become very slightly twisted which was adding too much friction to one of the pendulum pivots. I seem to have now fixed that and it runs for a day or so at a time; it does not stop by itself, only when I need to stop it to tweak the timing adjusters. I am now running it with about 3.2kg although it seems to be gradually running in and the pivots are easing up. Testing just now with the pendula geared together but with pallets removed gives a swing time of 65-70s, which seems reasonable. I don't want to disturb the pivots to test the pendula individually!
It's a fun clock to watch in action although it took a bit more work than I expected to get it running. Still, I seem to be almost there now - just trying to get the time-keeping about right. I agree with the above comments about ensuring that the pendula swing freely - this was at the heart of my problems but it took a while to get to the real issue.
It was put to one side and I have just started getting it running again. I think the frame had become very slightly twisted which was adding too much friction to one of the pendulum pivots. I seem to have now fixed that and it runs for a day or so at a time; it does not stop by itself, only when I need to stop it to tweak the timing adjusters. I am now running it with about 3.2kg although it seems to be gradually running in and the pivots are easing up. Testing just now with the pendula geared together but with pallets removed gives a swing time of 65-70s, which seems reasonable. I don't want to disturb the pivots to test the pendula individually!
It's a fun clock to watch in action although it took a bit more work than I expected to get it running. Still, I seem to be almost there now - just trying to get the time-keeping about right. I agree with the above comments about ensuring that the pendula swing freely - this was at the heart of my problems but it took a while to get to the real issue.