Storm Dudley

[Bobfly]

About six inches here, or about 15cms if you prefer ... !
Strong winds pushing the snow onto the upwind clock tower face stopped the clock so now the three faces are out of sync. Went up the tower and wound up the main weight and ran all the hands round twice hoping they would cut a groove through on the plastered face. Didn't really work so not matching. If the snow freezes I guess it will need some research to figure out how to eventually restore it to three matching clock faces !!! 🤔🤔

[admin]

Just take care Vaughan. No clock is worth killing yourself over.  We old codgers have to be careful - isn't that right Sandy?  - aye and you too Ken. 

[Bobfly]

No worries Fred. I am up the clock tower every week to wind the mechanism which is driven by a weight of about a hundredweight on a cable. There is a big crank handle at the top to wind it up and it can go 10 to 11 days as the weight then goes slowly down the middle the tower. There are three ships ladders going up with the mechanisms on the third landing. So it is all inside the tower where I can get at the hands on the inside sides of the outside faces.
The puzzle is that you have to visualize on the inside what the reverse image of the hands is on the outside. Each of the six hands has an internal opposing mini counterweight hand to balance off the weight of the outer hand which you can't see but you can see the counterweight mirror image inside if you can follow that !
Clocks with big hands need those unseen counterweights on each hand. Otherwise a big minute hand going from say 10 past to 30 minutes past has its weight behind it and would tend to be quicker and the the mechanism has to work harder to lift a big minute hand back up from half past back to the top again. With a three faces tower you would have three long minute hands all drawing down, or needing pulled upwards. So balancing all hands gives a smoother running and even balance.

[admin]

I hadn't even considered that Vaughan. Fascinating stuff.   

[admin]

The most remarkable thing about this storm is its ferocity and timing were forecast pretty much spot on ...... a week ago when the storm did not even exist. Astonishing!

[Bobfly]

Well someone put up a message 

[admin]