It's a shame that so many of these our clocks are being modernized or even just being replaced with something electronic so many of them are now rewild by electric motors is ridiculous. Once was at some Museum I don't know where it was or even which museum it was my dad was kind of excited Lee calling me over. I did not realize that they had a tower clock mekanism fully operational. This one might have been a later one it was set up to be automatically rewound originally even electrically and instead of having the pole rods or cables are ropes for bells if this would have been triggered electrically on this particular one using some sort of electric Striker mechanism. Almost all the switches on the thing can't remember about the reward motor switches this was as if I remember correctly still weight driven even though electrically-operated. Don't remember the name brand of the motors but I think they may have been a general electric old school This is one of those times I wish that we had smartphones back in the day or at least a video camera we never had a camcorder of our own unfortunately wish we had! Even my folks said it seems like we're always ten years behind everything in our family. And if anyone's ever seen a pretty heavy load on a Mercury switch I could just imagine seeing that thing in the dark with the flashes from the Mercury switches that would be awesome to see if I could have. Sino Mercury delay relays and old school Mercury tilt relays that were basically contactors but design for a service applications such as bell-ringing systems and the like primarily because of lack of contact maintenance and being triggered so many times a year 24/7. Nowadays this would be a dark old but for the times they were very reliable even a motorized relay that was a sequence relay cams and Mercury switches in the step coil. As well relays that just used a small motor to just tilt it not sure why this was used but I do know that was used in connection with some of the old bellring systems years ago I know someone that used to work on the old systems unfortunately never really got up to any Towers it just wasn't feasible it was only like one or two places that even had bills at that point in that town Someone I knew that was out of town when fortunately never worked out to get up to so the bell towers wouldn't loved to do so
@@aaronbrandenburg2441The weights for the movement that operates the striking is wound by an electric motor in this clock. The need for electricians for installing the motors or engineers would replace the jobs for winding clocks and the analogy can especially be applied to the gas street lamps that used to be lit manually. I think the other two weights for the chiming and timekeeping movement would be automated in the near future though…
@@BritishEngineer Only because winding the strike and chime trains by hand is tediously hard, time consuming and tiring, thus a electric motor was installed to wind these trains. Before that, it took two men 5 hours to wind these trains by hand.
@@BritishEngineer The weights for the chiming and striking trains _are_ electrically raised (since the 1920s I think); they are heavier than the one for the going train. All are wound up three times a week. It's only the raising that's electrified though - the three trains are still weight driven.
It was not like that before the restoration haha. It was very Squeaky and clangy during the chimes. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-neGQqnDRyy0.html
When that lever falls into the slot at 0:45, that stops the striking; note that the disc with the slots has them at varying intervals, to allow between one and twelve bongs. Presumably if someone jammed that lever up (say, by bridging one of the slots) it would go on striking continuously!
@@Dániel_László_in_Ungarn 1984 is a fictional book (written in I think the 1930s or '40s) about a dystopian future. I presume the author "George Orwell" (Eric Blair) thought that we'd be on the 24-hour clock by then, and that that would be a bad thing. (I personally would be delighted; I find a. m. and p. m. unnecessarily confusing! Though I wouldn't mind striking clocks staying as they are. But it'd make e. g. TV listings a lot easier!) A striking clock could easily be made to strike up to 24 (or for that matter any) times; it would just need different gearing and a 24-segment rather than 12-segment control wheel, assuming it used a similar mechanism to the one in the Great Clock as shown.
That's much much better. Every thing sounds nice and smooth. And the bell hammers are alot tighter and the bells sound alot more better, and alot less clangy than they were before restoration.
Yes I did and also it looks as though I should have added a "to" instead of that extra "the" in the second sentence. I sometimes wonder about myself 😩 😬@@stephensnell5707
Amazing to see how different the clock mechanism looks after it's been torn down piece by piece and restored. I was thinking it would look the same after they finished rebuilding the mechanism, but with a fresh coat of paint on the frame. Nevertheless, it's great to see it working again.
Yay it is back. How did you get permission to go up the tower? Its closed to the public. Edit* I have noticed that the clock sounds a lot quieter and less rattly then it did before the restoration. Sounds and runs like silk. A job well done to the men and women who have been working around the clock literally.
@@juansebastianantecontreras5376 quite possibly. I have always wanted to book a tour up the tower through my local MP but i am never in London at the right time.
Apart from a break in the 1970s, the original mechanism has been working since it was installed! And it was only the chimes part that broke then; the clock and the bongs part was mostly undamaged, though the frame was cracked. (Basically the air brake - those big flappy things - for the chiming mechanism broke, so it ran too fast, and the drum holding the cable to the weight broke free and smashed lots.)
@@treehouseofcomics It was renamed (from just the clock tower, I think) to the Elizabeth tower in honour of one of her jubilees; it isn't just named after the monarch.
I understand there are fly fans (not in shot here) that regulate the speed by using air resistance. That is what's making the clicking noise after the mechanism stops each time. But what is the point of those other bars that spin during the chiming and striking sequence? I've not seen those on any other tower clock mechanism.
The spinning bars are interlock bars that lock the striking and chiming trains when the longer horizontal release levers that the interlock bars lock into fall into the notches on the count wheels until the 4-faced cams release the levers. The interlock bars lock with the release levers on 0:14 for the chiming train and 0:44 for the striking train
It’s amazing how they were able to put that mechanism back together because it looks so complex that I can’t even fathom how the whole thing goes together and functions
Maybe it's complex for you who don't understand watchmaking, I who do it as a job find it simple and ingenious, the difference is in the dimensions: a wristwatch is very small, a tower clock is very big, that's all.
@@ag6371 Ohh so the three legged escapement is known as the gravity escapement. I see. The clock in our local town hall has a deadbeat (Anchor) and for a long time i have always wondered what the name is for it. Thank you for that.
Just what I've been saying! It does have one bit your grandfather clock doesn't, though, and that's the nest of gears above, that splits the drive (that shaft that goes up at a sloping angle) four ways to the four dials.
In Canada. Never been to London though I’d love to go. I saw a video once of how this clock worked years ago. Something about coins being placed to provide the correct weight to keep the clock on time. Since the remodel, is this no longer a thing? This mechanism suggest it’s mechanically wound and controlled now.
No, it's still a pendulum clock (two-second tick), and they still add or remove old pennies to the pendulum to adjust it. The three parts are still weight-driven, but at least the chimes and striking mechanisms have electric motors to wind the weights back up when needed. (Not sure about the clock part; that certainly was still manually wound three times a week well after the other parts - see some of the other videos.)
@@SylveonMujigaeOfficial And we say different to or from, not than 🙂 (I'm not saying that's more correct, just different!) [I do think our date format is more logical, though.]
As I understand it, you need to be a UK citizen and to have lived in the UK for at least six months. Application is made through a local MP and the process takes a few months
Why does the Big Ben beating mechanism get stuck when the cable is stretched? this is unnecessary, it should lock immediately after the bell is struck.
@Emmett the clock collector. A turret or church clock is lubricated with whale oil for your information. I have an official book on church clocks that explains how and why. Regards
I see no chaos: everything's working like clockwork! (The tower _is_ leaning - I think by about 9 inches at the clock level [which is pretty negligible], increasing by about a mm a year; they are monitoring it, and have tubes in the underlying clay they can pump grout into if necessary.)
Deepest congratulations and salutations to all the people of UK who produced the BIGgest BEN. DR M ISMAIL FARUQUI MA LL B PhD 77years.Lucknow ( INDIA ).
Yes I think it’s going to break or the big gear will just blow up. I don’t know where is the big deal but I never been there like about like maybe a month like a lot of months in and also a year no this is my BVC that’s a rainbow thing, but you can turn into one big planet and a change into Pluto and then it changed into a planet. Pluto is a planet but is it your mouth and we live in on? I’m not I’m not need to. We said that to you because I think you would. I think you’ll in London and what’s your bullet I don’t know what I just said, I don’t know what I just said
It has electric motors to wind up the weights for the chiming and striking mechanisms when they need so winding. The main clock mechanism, certainly until recently had its weight manually wound up three days a week - see other videos about it; I don't know if it still does in 2024.
