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PATENT REGULATOR, 1984
I became fascinated by gravity escapements and spent ages drawing them in the science
museum. The idea is that the pendulum is kept swinging by the weight of two small arms,
and is not directly connected to the clock gearing, to make it more accurate. Big Ben, and
many other victorian clocks have gravity escapements. They are beautiful to watch. Without
a lathe or many metalwork tools, I spent a couple of months making my own version. The
bureaucrat figures move their heads from side to side with the escapement mechanism. Their
arms move in and out, moving the chain round the bicycle ratchets to wind it up, every
half hour or so.
The two small cranked levers in the hands of the wooden figures are
connected to two small geared motors. A quartz timer was going to make
them rotate once at minight, sweeping up the minute hand and pushing it to
zero (as long as its not more than about 6 minutes slow or fast). In
practice the clock was accurate enough for them not to be
needed. Although the clock is accurate, the
'tick' is very noisy. It lived in an
architects office in London for ten years but has now retired to my office, only running
on special occasions.
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