Grouch and Son, Clock Repairs

So, the Grouch family has a grandfather clock purchased at the PX in Wurzburg Germany many years ago. The poor clock suffered badly at the hands of the movers when it journeyed from Germany to Aberdeen MD (my next duty station). When we opened the box the clock was packed in we saw that the glass in the door over the clock part was smashed and the metal plate that the hands were mounted to was actually bent into a wavy pattern. I figured it was a write-off but the Army insisted on having it repaired and luckily enough we found a guy who managed to fix the thing and get it running. Since then the clock has journeyed to Colorado, Michigan, Chicago, and has been sitting in our living room here in the wilds of Grouchland in Southern California for 22 years. It survived the great Northridge earthquake of 1994 with only some frantic bonging - I thought it fell over when I heard it but it was still standing when we rushed by it and out the door.

About a week ago I was pulling the weights up to the top to keep the thing ticking and chiming the time when there was a mighty crash and the chain I was pulling suddenly flew through the gears with no resistance on it until it jammed in the mechanism. One of the weights had come apart and crashed to the bottom of the clock in a manner reminiscent of my 401k. I recovered the weight and saw that the infernal device had come unscrewed. Further inspection showed the chain jammed in the gear. I fiddled with it but couldn't get it out. Later I called a clock repairman. He wanted $285 to come out, take the clock away, unjam it and give it a tune up. I realize the man has to make a living but $285 was not what I expected!

With encouragement from the Missus I decided to give it one more attempt to unjam the mechanism. After all if I can unjam a Browning 1919A4, surely I could deal with this! With the help of older son and a dental pick liberated from my gun cleaning supplies I managed to carefully lift the chain off of the gear, feed it back through the gear the proper way and get the clock ticking. Unfortunately the clock wasn't bonging the quarter hour. Something was still jammed.

Thinking of the Beach Master on Sword beach, D Day 1944 who told the lads in a recalcitrant Bren gun carrier "My old granny told me to just give a machine a bash when it won't work" (which he did with his walking stick, and the carrier promptly started) I decided a little force was in order for what ailed the clock.

I gave the gears a shove and with a whirr and a click the clock started bonging the quarter hour. Success! And it is keeping even better time than before the falling weight incident. I also loctited the threads on the weights so they wouldn't come apart again.

$285 indeed!