Care & Repair

How to prepare your clock for shipping back to us.

To send a clock to a service station, pull the chains so the hooks are under the case. Insert a piece of string, wire or a twist wrap through all the chains “close as possible to the case bottom.” Bundle up the chains in a piece of aluminium foil and tie up tightly with a rubber band, tape or string. This prevents the chains from coming off the wheels and creating a snarled mess of chains inside the clock.

Put a strip of paper in the spiral gong on the inside of the back access panel. Pack the clock in an oversized box with crushed newspaper (do not use styrofoam peanuts), wrap and label the pendulum, and place in box. Do not send the weights. If there are any numbers on the weights (275 or 320, etc.), write them on a piece of paper, along with your name, address, phone number, email address, a short description of any problems, and enclose in box.

The clock runs too slow/too fast.

The pendulum is responsible for making the clock keep time. If your clock runs too fast, you can move the pendulum-disc down a little on the pendulum to correct this. If the clock is running too slow, you have to move the pendulum-disc up. This should also be described in your clock’s setup instructions. Keep in mind that moving the pendulum leaf or disc 1/8" (3mm) on the pendulum stick is equal to a three minute change in a 24 hour period.

After unpacking the clock, the cuckoo (and the music with musical clocks) does not work.

Please follow the setup instructions carefully when unpacking the clock. If the clock should not work in the end, please check the following points:

1. Have the clamps been removed from the bellows inside the clock as described in the instructions (see picture)?

2. Has the cuckoo’s door been “unlocked”? You have to turn a little wire that secured the door while shipping to the side (see picture).

3. Please check the position of the night shut-off. The most common reason why the clock and music do not work is that they have been turned off. With some clocks the night shut-off is a switch at the left side of the clock, with other types it is a wire under the clock (see picture). Check both positions of the night shut-off and make sure that the switch is not “somewhere between” the ON and OFF position.

A chain is off the wheel.

If one of the weights always drops to the floor at once, the chain has fallen off the wheel. Fixing this is not so easy, it will require patience. To fix this, pull the other chains fully up and remove all weights. Take a piece of wire and secure the other chains under the clock’s case “as close as possible” to the bottom of the case (see picture). This is VERY IMPORTANT, otherwise the other chains will fall off their wheels as well during the next step. Take the clock from the wall and open it on the back. Now turn the clock upside-down and try to balance the chain back on the wheel.

The clock does not cuckoo on the full and on the half-hour, but at other times.

It is not the cuckoo that goes wrong, but the minute-hand is in the wrong position.

To adjust the hand you should loosen the hand nut, reposition the minute-hand to the proper hour, and retighten the hand nut. If the cuckoo calls the wrong hour (cuckoos 3 times at 4 o’clock), loosen the hour hand by carefully pulling it off the shaft, move the hand to the 3 o’clock position once it is loose, and push it back onto the shaft. Never adjust the time by moving the hour hand, since this will cause the exact same problem.

After the cuckoo call the door stays open.

If you open the clock on the back, you will see a thin wire that starts at the bellows and goes up to the cuckoo. This wire should move the cuckoo up and down a little while it calls. It is not connected with the cuckoo but usually ends under the cuckoo’s tail (see picture). During shipping, it may happen that this wire is turned above the cuckoo. If it is above, it may block the cuckoo and the door.

To fix this you can simply turn the wire around the cuckoo — carefully — so it is under the cuckoo’s tail again. This should be quite easy if you open the cuckoo’s door (the cuckoo will move forward when the door is opened).