Home › I › Importance of Fixing

Importance of Fixing

Whatever kind of pendulum is used, it will not keep time unless it is rigidly fixed. Just as engineer clockmakers invariably make their escape wheels and other moving parts too heavy, so clockmakers always seem afraid to put enough metal in their pendulum cocks and brackets, which have rarely enough base either. The beneficial effect of the heavy pendulum bobs, which it has been the custom recently to use for regulator and turret clocks, is often quite lost for want of sufficient fixing for the pendulum. For a regulator, the pendulum should be supported on a cast-iron bracket with a base at least 10 inches square, bolted right through the back of the case, which should be not less than an inch and a quarter thick. For a turret clock a bracket of a proportional size should be used, bolted to one of the main walls of the building, or, if attached to the clock frame, the rigid connection of the latter with the walls by means of girders or cantilevers should not be lost sight of. A timber frame fixing for a turret clock pendulum will never be satisfactory.