Escapement Repair, Adjustment, and Remanufacture
The escapement of a clock is that portion of the gear train that provides impulse to the pendulum and keeps the pendulum in perpetual motion. Every time you hear a “tick” or a “tock”, what you’re hearing is the action of the escapement providing an impulse, or a “push”, to the pendulum….with each swing of the pendulum.
Escapements are often in poor condition due to decades or centuries of wear-and-tear from use, but also from improper adjustment attempts or poor-quality workmanship during prior repair attempts.
JFK understood the basics of escapements’ operation from a very young age but studied the art and science of escapement making and repair in the 1990s.
From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, JFK repaired, adjusted, and even custom-built new escapements….for other clock repairmen who could not (or chose not to) do this work themselves.
Since about 2005, I stopped providing this work to other repairman or shops. From that time to the present, I have offered it only to my own clock customers whose clocks presented mild, to moderate, to severe escapement troubles….that needed to be corrected as part of their clocks’ general repair.
The most common type of escapements are the following:
- Dead-Beat
- Brocot*
- Half-Deadbeat
- Recoil
When clocks that use these escapement types present to JFK with normal or severe wear, damage, poor quality prior craftsmanship, or gross misadjustment….JFK is able to adjust, repair, remanufacture, or replace the entire escapement….so that the escapement and the clock will be back in proper running condition.
*The Brocot, or “Open” escapement, is a dead-beat, open-escapement type (“open”, meaning visible on the face of the clock) that has “D”-shaped steel or ruby pallet jewels. Brocot escapements are common on many French clocks, and on American “Glass and Brass”, Crystal Regulator, and heavy marble clocks on which the escapement is visible on the front face or dial.
Repairs and adjustment to the Brocot can be particularly difficult. But if your clock has a Brocot escapement that needs attention, JFK can repair it. Including the machining and installation of new, steel “D”-shaped pallet jewels (hardened), or the proper installation of “ruby” (stone) D-shaped pallet jewels, set in shellac.
Whether your clock has a Brocot escapement or one of the other types, if it doesn’t seem to tick “strongly”, and with good back-and-forth motion of the pendulum….or if it stops just after a few swings of the pendulum even if the clock is fully wound….this behavior may be symptomatic of escapement troubles.
I have 30 years of bench experience in the correction of escapements’ problems, and I knew the basics of escapements many years prior to that. So JFK is well-capable of diagnosing and correcting such problems, even rebuilding your clock’s escapement completely….if necessary.
If you believe that your clock may have these types of [potentially very serious] issues, please inquire. I’d be happy to look at it for you.