Cleaning an Antique Ingraham 8-day Movement - Part 2

Part 1 is here.

When last we looked, the back plate of the movement was removed, exposing the Heart of the Beast.

I’m afraid this portion will be a bit light on pictures, as had a few issues on the way that got me a bit flustered.

First would be this:

When Good Zipties Go Bad

Yes, that is an a’sploded mainspring and my hand. Fortunately, it didn’t rip my hand up. But it’s possible; these mainwheels can become tiny buzzsaws in your hands if you’re not careful. Rewinding this one was probably a bit more dangerous to me than the original breakout, as I don’t yet have a proper rewinding tool. However, I got it wound and placed a steel spring-clamp on it to keep it in it’s place.

I set the timer on the Us tank for 480 seconds, and let it rip. I also had the heater on for about 45 minutes before putting the pats in to soak.

The Ultrasonic cleaner is wonderful for this, it gets all the gunk off the brass, and leaves it clean. Too strong a mix can leave the brass “too clean”, and while that bright yellow color (it looks like gold, really) is pretty, it also tarnishes easier. My mix is good enough to get the crud off, but leaves the brass not as bright. Clean is all I want, shiny isn’t clean.

These pictures really don’t show the level of dirt and the difference. Trust me, this movement was nasty.

Here, the gears are soaked in denatured alcohol, then taken in and blow-dried. The plates I wiped down with a clean rag.

I’d begun reassembly, and nothing was really going back in correctly. The reason was because I installed the mainwheels and springs incorrectly, and the winding shafts were sticking out what is the back of the movement, shown here. Swapped them around to the proper orientation and gears jumped in like magic.

This is mostly reassembled. I don’t remember exactly, but it appears most of the strike train is installed, minus the fly and one other gear, and the timeside is mostly not there.

And the final shot, the movement, reassembled, ticking away on my shelf. I don’t have hands for this movement, so I’m not installing it back into it’s case until I find some that’ll fit. As there were NO hands at all on it, I’m kinda in the dark about what the correct hands would look like. This clock will be (is!) for sale, $125. Go look up the value of an Ingraham mantle clock, you’ll probably find I’m either right on, or very low.