Category: Let's talk
I recently acquired one courtesy of my folks, who are in the process of preparing to sell their house. For the record my folks had the clock for at least thirteen years, but before that it belonged to one of my aunts although I'm not sure how long she owned it. But I've encountered a rather strange problem in the last day or so. I've taken to winding it every sunday morning and a few hours after winding it this last time I noticed that I hadn't been hearing either the chimes or striking, yet the clock was still keeping time. I eventually tried switching the chimes off and then immediately back on, which had the desired effect of bringing the chimes back, although they had to be synced back up. But since then I've had the same thing happen twice more, although again the clock continues to keep perfect time, or at least as close as it can be given that it's a totally blind guy setting the thing. The really strange part about this is that it always seems to be during the full hour chime that this seems to happen. It'll get almost all the way through the third quarter hour sequence and then just stop. Sometimes it'll start back up chiming after a few hours or, if I do the trick of switching the chimes off and then back on, it'll pick up at the next point when it normall would have chimed, this being the quarter hour. But since it stopped chiming almost all the way through a top of the hour sequence it'll pick up with the last few notes of that and then the hourly strike for the hour it stopped chiming at, regardless of what time is actually displayed. I have to move the hands back to the closest chiming point to get the chimes back in proper sequence. My question, given the fact that I'm not certain of the exact age of the clock, is if this is a sign that the movement needs to be replaced. I've ehard that the chiming train can sometimes wear out more quickly than the others.