Clock Repair: Basics

Clock Repair Basics is a clock repair course in itself. Start with letting down the mainspring power, then take apart a movement, clean it, and repair it! The basics on escapements, pendulums, bushing work and more are all in this book. You'll have a glossary of clock terms, a lubrication guide, a beginner s guide to strike and chime mechanisms, a section on electric clocks, and a special chapter featuring five starter clocks: OG, American spring driven strike clock, cuckoo, 400-day, and modern Hermle chime clock. There are 92 pages of text, with index, and 158 photos and line drawings in this large 8-1/2 x 11 format. Experienced repairers will also find plenty of useful information in the book. Compare your methods to the ones described in the book, and use whatever helps you! Keep it right on the bench for the hard-to-remember mainspring length formula, the methods for determining beats per hour and pendulum length, and quick-reference adjustments for the major escapements.

Steven G. Conover writes books on clock repair and clockmaking. His eleven titles include Clock Repair Basics, a beginning book; Chime Clock Repair, a text covering the most common chime clocks seen by repairers; Building an American Clock Movement, which illustrates how to make a complete timepiece movement; and Repairing French Pendulum Clocks, covering several types of French clocks. As editor of Clockmakers Newsletter, Steven published an eight-page subscription newsletter featuring clock repair articles, repair tips, questions & answers, and product reviews, from 1987 through 2008. He is working on a new Workshop Series version of Clockmakers Newsletter. The series presents the edited, updated content of the newsletters, reorganized by topic, in book form. Ten books are planned; the first two were published in December 2011. Steven is a graduate of Northeastern University, Boston Mass., and a Fellow of the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors (NAWCC).