tick-less movements

Frank Fusco

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Location
Mountain Home, Arkansas
We have had a few nice clocks posted recently.
Which reminded me why I haven't made a clock in a few years.
The movements I have been able to find tick.
We have had overnight house guests who actually removed the battery from clocks because the ticking kept them awake.
The several clocks I have given as gifts may be displayed by the folks I gave them to but sans batteries. Explanation is that they cannot stand the ticking.
Truth is, neither can I.
Can someone recommend a source for battery operated movements that do not tick?
 
I'm right there with you Frank!:D The ticking drives me up a wall but I'm always saying "Huh?" to people..... go figure!!:rofl::rofl: I quit wearing wrist watches to bed years ago for the same reason. I'd put my arm under the pillow and would hear the darn thing ticking away:eek::D I wonder if you could add rubber grommets to the mechanism and mount it with screws inside the clock rather than by the shaft to the face plate? It would remove the "sounding board" effect.:huh:
 
Hi Frank.

I do not want to start an argument here, and let me say in advance that clocks that tick also get on my nerves but...

Isn't this a sign on how much stressed we all are that we can't stand the ticking of a clock?

Mechanical clocks always ticked ( and louder than quartz ones) and most of them chimed as well and nobody complained about that. The most common way of knowing if a watch worked was approacing it to your ear, now even doing that it is difficult to hear them.

Nowadays we are continuously under the agression of noise, or the so called "ambient music", in shops, restaurants, everywhere. The roar of planes, cars and so forth, makes us desire and deserve some silence between the four walls of our homes, and we get mad at a clock because it ticks.
That's another hint to me that we are going the wrong way with this civilisation of ours.:(
 
No suggestions (other than check some of the better quartz movements), but I suspect you'd have gone nuts at the home of one my my dad's cousins. This cousin and her husband spent several years in Germany in the Army, and they got into collecting Black Forest cuckoo clocks. Over 100 of the darned things, all over the house, and all of them ticking loudly and making noise every 15, 30, or 60 minutes. :p
 
No suggestions (other than check some of the better quartz movements), but I suspect you'd have gone nuts at the home of one my my dad's cousins. This cousin and her husband spent several years in Germany in the Army, and they got into collecting Black Forest cuckoo clocks. Over 100 of the darned things, all over the house, and all of them ticking loudly and making noise every 15, 30, or 60 minutes. :p
Color me Jack Nicholson:eek::rofl:
 
I guess I am not stressed, I actually enjoy hearing the ticking of the clock. I have two that tick and chime also , and I sometimes have to look to see if they are running, since a lot of time I never hear them I would suggest a good quartz movement if you want tick-less. Sort of like living close to an airport or railroad track, the noise is overlooked after a while.
Charles
 
What's wrong with a ticking clock? My wife & I bought a wind up mantle clock, grandmother clock I guess, in a discount department store. When we bought it, we couldn't hear the clock because of the ambient noise in the store, but the clerk assured us that it did tick.

My son has told us that he enjoys hearing the clock when he wakes up in the night and misses the sound if the clock is stopped.
 
Frank...

Must admit I'm with the guys who like the ticking, even the chimes. As long as it doesn't drown out the Soundscapes music channel of course. My favorite movement is the Hermle P1375 quartz with pendulum. You can read about it many places, but this is the best price I've found:
http://www.merritts.com/store4/public/product.aspx?ProductID=81323&SubcategoryID=2042

You can see a photo of a clock I made for my granddaughter here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzes10q3/the_woodlot/id4.html

The chime is quite good, and there are choices depending on which movement you buy. The standard seems to be Westminster, and that's the one I prefer. This movement has a volume control, and of course you have to figure out how to mount the speaker, so there is control over how loud it actually is.

Cheers.
 
Ed, just out of curiosity, does the accuracy of the quartz pendulum clock depend on the length and weight of the pendulum? I'll guess probably not.

We have our windup clock on an oustside wall, and the length of the pendulum has to be adjusted with the changing seasons. Some more expensive clocks have bi-metallic pendulums that maintain accurracy with chnges in temperature.
 
Hi Frank.

I do not want to start an argument here, and let me say in advance that clocks that tick also get on my nerves but...

Isn't this a sign on how much stressed we all are that we can't stand the ticking of a clock?

Mechanical clocks always ticked ( and louder than quartz ones) and most of them chimed as well and nobody complained about that. The most common way of knowing if a watch worked was approacing it to your ear, now even doing that it is difficult to hear them.

Nowadays we are continuously under the agression of noise, or the so called "ambient music", in shops, restaurants, everywhere. The roar of planes, cars and so forth, makes us desire and deserve some silence between the four walls of our homes, and we get mad at a clock because it ticks.
That's another hint to me that we are going the wrong way with this civilisation of ours.:(

Toni, I have heard of things called 'sensory deprivation chambers'. They are used for scientific study of human responses. Supposedly, they match body temperature so you don't feel warm or cold, absolutely black, totally soundproofed and silent, floor is like a water bed with no pressure points, etc. It is said that some folks go insane in one of those places. I would think it a joy. Dark and, best of all, quiet. I would probably go to sleep for two days.
Yep, to me, a ticking clock is a target.
 
Toni, I have heard of things called 'sensory deprivation chambers'. They are used for scientific study of human responses. Supposedly, they match body temperature so you don't feel warm or cold, absolutely black, totally soundproofed and silent, floor is like a water bed with no pressure points, etc. It is said that some folks go insane in one of those places. I would think it a joy. Dark and, best of all, quiet. I would probably go to sleep for two days.
Yep, to me, a ticking clock is a target.

Yes, I have heard about them as well, and there are some aesthetic centers here that supply that service. You a hire an hour or half to be locked in somesort of eggshell, with warm water with a desnity next to the human body that makes you float effortless, and you stay there deprived of any external disturbance for the time hired. They are suposed to relax you. My opinion is that about 50$ per session they relax your pockets.

However, if i had to choose I'd rather get a well known soft and slow ticking of a grandfather's clock with a long pendulum than the nervous and ¿"faster"?
ticking of a quartz movement.

By the way: Here in Spain we say that clocks make TIC-TAC, do you say the same in US? For instance in spain dogs bark GUAU-GUAU and in US something like WOF-WOF isn't it?:)
 
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