| Clocks Magazine tips | April 2004
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Taping panels
G Kraemer mentions the use of elastic bands to keep in place the glass panels when dismantling carriage clock cases. An alternative is to use a small piece of masking tape. Run your thumb over the adhesive side to take away some of the stickiness—and don’t go overboard, one strip is all that is needed. Tape can also be used to hold the glass top panel in place when assembling. The oval ones tend to be particularly fiddly and to move about as you tighten the screws.
Remember the tiny wood screws used that hold the movement straps in place in Napoleon hat type clocks? There is generally never enough room to place the screw. If you drop it and it falls into the movement you can be in all sorts of trouble. A screwdriver, which also holds the screw, is useful. An alternative is to use piece of Blue-tac or Rodico at the end of the screwdriver blade. Use a sizeable piece, well attached to the screwdriver tip and press in the screw. Once the screw is placed in the hole and given a half turn, if you’ve judged it right, a slight yank should ensure that the Blu-tac comes away with the screwdriver and doesn’t stay with the screw!
A job to test one’s patience can be the task of placing timing washers behind the small screws in the rim of a wristwatch balance. The balance rim can be held on edge with Rodico so that the hole for the balance rim screw is vertical. Before replacing the screw a timing washer is placed over the hole and the screw dropped through the washer and into the rim. The screw is tightened and the balance turned so that the next hole is vertical and so on. Of course, great care is still needed particularly on cut balance rims, which can easily be distorted, but I have found that holding the balance this way does help.
Clive Driscoll, UK
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