Dent

The Dent is spring-powered (runs about 2-1/2 days on a winding), and features (besides my favorite Art Deco styling) a compound pendulum, grasshopper escape, and a 30-second gravity remontoire.

The 1/4-ounce weight hanging to the side (yes, 0.25 oz.!) powers the escape mechanism. The mainspring rewinds the remontoire and advances the motion works every 30 seconds.

From the back, you can see the “pin-point” pendulum suspension. This is a 2-1/2 second compound pendulum, and like some compounds, it has a “crazy” adjustment - moving the 2-oz. brass adjustment weight down speeds it up!

A side view, showing the gearing, the lantern pinions, and part of the nice walnut case. You can also see the fly fan remontoire governor.

On the arbor in the middle of this picture is the remontoire “stop arm”.

This (tilted) view shows the single-pivot grasshopper escape. This was my first grasshopper, and even though I didn’t yet know the fine details of grasshopper design, I (accidentally) got it perfect!

You can also see the remontoire carriage in this picture. the Dent

(named after the British clock manufacturer; 2 of their famous clocks inspired this one.)

This is one of my technological masterpieces. The remontoire was a great challenge to understand and design.

I’ve built several spring-powered clocks (let’s say “tried to build…”), but this is one of the few successful ones. The secret is that the spring doesn’t power the escape - all it has to do is rewind the remontoire - so it doesn’t matter that it rewinds ‘quickly’ when fully wound, and ‘s-l-o-w-l-y’ at the end. The escape gets perfectly constant power via the remontoire, and this clock can be adjusted to keep excellent time.

It’s also a total trip to watch!