Mystery Clock

[Душан Грујић]

Вот интересно восстановление ранних японских часов, которые были произведены где-то между шестнадцатым и семнадцатым веком. Часы были восстановлены Ray Bates, английский часовых дел Мастер, проживающий в штате Вермонт, США.

Пожалуйста, извините, но перевод сопроводительного текста на русский язык слишком большая задача для меня.

Наслаждайтесь изображениями и видео, показывающие, как часы работают.

С уважением

Душан


Mystery Clock

Early last year we were brought a box of clock parts by a customer who had acquired them on eBay. He asked us to see what we could make of them, saying only that the clock was Japanese and very old. The frame of the clock was reminiscent of an early English or Dutch lantern clock from the 17th century and the wheels and pinions were crudely made and very rusty and corroded.

Laying everything out like a jigsaw puzzle, we could see that parts were missing and what pieces were left were very badly worn. Some gear teeth were bent or broken, the original weights were missing, along with the tiny weights used to regulate the double foliot escapement, and the bell.

Quite unlike any other clock we had worked on in the past, it was obviously based on the design of European clocks from the 16th and 17th centuries, but with features unique to the Japanese system of time measurement of that period. Extensive research revealed that this was a Japanese clock and would have been owned by a daimyo, a feudal land governor, one of the wealthy and privileged class who alone could afford to own such a clock.

Introduced to Japan during the late 1500's by Jesuit missionaries and Dutch traders, European mechanical clocks were studies by Japanese craftsmen who copies the general design but then added their modifications to adapt them to their own system of timekeeping. Unlike the Western system of equal hour division, the Japanese divided the day into daylight and nighttime units of six hours each, but with the length of hours varying from season to season. This required special gearing to operate the two separate foliots independently, switching from one to the other to indicate the hours according to whether it was night or day, the nighttime hours being shorter than the daylight.


Click the picture to see this clock in action!

The time was also indicated by the striking of the bell and conformed to the visual system indicated by the dial, requiring intimate familiarity with the unique system. The dial was marked for the two six hour periods but with 9 corresponding to our midday and midnight. Symbols also represented the hours in zodiac characters, each number having the form of the animal named for it. Thus, Noon 9 was Horse; 8 Goat; 7 Monkey; and Sunset was6 Cock; 5 Dog; 4 Bear. Midnight 9 Rat; 8 Ox; 7 Tiger; 6 Hare; 5 Dragon; 4 Serpent.



The seasonal changes along with the varying lengths of the hours were such that a dedicated clock minder had to be employed to make the necessary adjustments, further adding to the limitation of ownership to only the wealthy Daimyo class.



Returning to the present, once we had determined the design of the missing parts and had made replacements, and fitted them to the cleaned and mechanically restored movement, the clock was mounted on a testing bracket on the wall, and became the object of awe and mystery to everyone visiting the shop, with its rhythmic sound and visual intrigue, its folios rotating gracefully above the dial, and switching automatically as required by means of the ingenious system of cams, and the double crown wheels, which drive them.



It is a good reminder of the importance that time played in the distant past and still does in ours in the present. Moving inexorably onward, second by second, and never to be redeemed.