I am a big fan of weight driven clocks and will add them to my collection when time, opportunity and finances allow.
There are generally 2 categories of motive power for mechanical clocks. The energy required to run a clock is provided either by a spring or a weight. Most of my collection is spring-driven but 10 clocks are driven by weights and they represent the broad period from 1835 to 1996.
here are some interesting facts about my ten weight driven clocks:
- Eight are American,
- Two are Austro-German,
- Three are Ogee style,
- Five are thirty-hour or one-day,
- Two are column style
- One is woodworks, and
- Three have deadbeat escapements with maintaining power
Rather than describe each one I will let the photos (with captions) speak for themselves.
There will certainly be more weight driven clocks in the future. I hope you enjoyed the tour.
I would be curious to know which of these has “maintaining power” because it tends to be something that is available coincidentally (like pull-up 30 hour longcase movements) or an expensive added feature in fine regulators and precision clocks. If I had to guess based on the 10 photos shown I’d say 0/10 have maintaining power.
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Perhaps our definitions of maintaining power are different. However, why would Timesavers sell a maintaining power return spring if, as you say, it does not have it? As for the small VR I am pretty sure it has MP but do not have a good photo to show it.
Ron
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The Seth Thomas #2 has maintaining power and here is what the maintaining power spring looks like. I do not have a photo of the small VR movement but it also has maintaining power….unless our defintions differ.
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Interesting. I know some Viennas can have them, but as I said, it’s a more expensive luxury feature as extra parts need to be manufactured. I have well over 100 clocks, and I think I only have maintaining power on one or two (not counting endless loop longcase movements? I’ve worked on regulators and high end client clocks that had maintaining power.
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