Affixing a clockwork clock to a wall

[Stephen]

Hello,

I've inherited a clock; the type that's a wooden cabinet with a pendulum inside. It has a metal bracket on the top, with a hole in for fixing to the wall.

I was wondering, is there a table showing what weight each gauge of screw will support? I suppose it's not that simple because the substrate might fail before the screw does. I'm sure I could have got away with less but I went with a 12 gauge screw just to be sure!

The drill bit seemed to slip a few mm, so I wonder whether I was on the interface between the brick and the mortar? Thereafter the drill went in very fast and I don't remember seeing red brick dust. I did consider drilling in a different position, however, once I inserted a brown plug and the screw, it seemed rigid in position. Do I need to worry about it falling off in the night?

I have found that when I open the door to wind the clock, the shift in the centre of gravity causes the clock to rotate. What's the best way to remedy this? I'm thinking I need to put a screw behind the frame in the bottom corner, to stop the it moving in this way.

One last, daft, question, how do you set the time on these? The fingers seemed to have quite some resistance so I was weary to push them for fear of damaging the internal workings or bending the fingers!

The is pendulum and the fingers are moving but it is not chiming at the moment.

Thanks, Stephen.

[ss]

Others can advise on the weight/mounting.

Do you have an image of the clock or if you can email me (dont know how you do that on here) I can probably give some help on the mechanical side. I am not a clock repairer but I have fiddled with clocks for years on and off.

[Roger Mills]

The screw will be in shear rather than in tension so, provided it's fairly firm, it's unlikely to pull out and dump the clock on the floor.

Does the clock want to rotate when you've finished winding it and taken your hands away, or only when it's actually being wound. If the latter, this is to be expected to some extent because you're exerting a torque on it through the key. Can you hold the case still with your other hand as you wind it? Or could you put a peg in the wall for the bottom of the case to press against while being wound, to react the torque?

The normal way of setting the hands on a chiming clock is to put one finger on the tip of the minute hand, and move it in a clockwise direction (the gearing will ensure that the hour hand moves by the right amount) - pausing at each point at which it is supposed to chime (every hour, half hour, quarter hour, whatever) to allow it to chime before moving on - otherwise the chiming mechanism gets hopelessly out of synch with the hands.