Stopping your clock when you go away depends on how long you'll be absent. If it's merely for a
couple of nights, then no. There's no need to stop your clock for such a short period. However, if
it's for more than a week, then simply stop the pendulum swinging.
The risk involved when you allow it to run right down is that the strike and/or chime levers can
become jammed. This isn't necessarily the case, and you're often able to free the mechanism, but
there's nothing worse than having to call in your friendly neighbourhood repair man and have to
pay him over such a simple problem. Simple for him, but you certainly can't be faulted for not
trying to fix the problem yourself.
The most likely type of clock to jam is one that chimes the quarter hours, the melody part, only
because it has the opportunity to hang up every fifteen minutes. Believe me , clocks are strict
adherents to Murphy's Law. If they can manage to stop, they will!
The clock that strikes the hour, or hour and half hour, the striker, the one that simply counts the
hours, isn't so likely to give trouble. However, another point to bear in mind is that if the clock's
strike mechanism is of the older type, the locking wheel, as opposed to the rack and snail, then
it's conceivable that it might 'throw' the time, in other words you might find it striking four
o'clock when in fact the hands point to six.
A fault such as this is very easily corrected. You merely move the hour hand, the shorter of the
two, to four o'clock. From there you adjust the clock to the correct time in the normal way,
always allowing the clock to strike. However, if the mechanism is rack and snail, it's impossible
for the time to become divorced from the count of the hour, so to speak. Put more directly, it
can't get out of whack!
Whatever you do, never ever take off the pendulum. Just stop it swinging and let it hang. Neither
should you remove the weights on your grandfather clock. Once again, just stop the pendulum
from swinging and let it hang. Remember that the weights are the motive force, in just the same
way that the mainspring's the motive force for mantel clocks, and you certainly wouldn't attempt
to let the mainspring down on your mantel clock, I hope!
This brings us to the carriage clock, or any clock that has what's called a platform escapement.
Occasionally, these escapements are placed directly on the back plate of the clock, but much
more usually they straddle the tops of the front and back plates.
This type of clock has a balance and spring and almost always may be seen operating quite
clearly if you look down on the clock from the top. Now this is a little more tricky to stop, but
with the exercise of a little care is quite easy to do. Simply fold a small piece of paper and very
gently, slip it under the balance. The paper will tend to try to open, putting just enough force on
the balance to stop its oscillation, but not enough to cause damage. On your return, take the piece
of paper out equally gently, and the mechanism should start up immediately, assuming it's what's
known as a lever escapement, which it probably is.
When it comes to timepieces, clocks that neither strike nor chime, there's a general feeling that
they may be simply allowed to wind down without any trouble. Nothing could be farther from the
truth, however. Indeed, this is another problem that may be encountered if any type of clock
winds down.
All of a sudden, there's no power going through the time train, but the pendulum continues to
swing. The escape wheel stops with the rest of the train, and there's an awful risk that the ends, or
nibs, of the pallets come down on the tips of the escape wheel teeth and not between them. If this
happens, especially with a very heavy pendulum, then the movement may end up with at least
one bent and damaged escape wheel tooth. If this happens, then you could find your wallet
considerably lighter!
