Antique Seth Thomas Overhaul - Part 4 - Disassembly & Partial Cleaning

Okay, so now we're going to begin dismantling this bugger. So we've got the springs let down, just to recap, okay. We've taken some of the other things off from the outside. One of the last things we're going to take off from the outside, we couldn't take off before, it's very important, is the verge and the pallet, well, pallet, verge, crutch, it's got different names. This is the actual crutch, this wire, but we need to take this off, which is actually very easily accomplished. I don't really need to, like, go into exactly how, but, well, yeah, why not. Okay, so now what we're going to do is we're going to lift up on this, maybe, that's really stiff, and move that out of the way, not that way though, need to go this way, there we go, like that, and then we can just, very carefully, pull that bridge off of that pin, we're going to set that out of the way, and we're going to turn this back around. Now we can start actually dismantling the rest of this. I do believe all the bases are covered, again, the springs are the most important part, because they will hurt you, I can never stress that enough, you're going to hate me by the end of this video, but anyhow, so now what I need to do is, this is a very weird spot for a screw, there's a really weird spot on here to have a screw, and it's right behind this gear, okay, it's right there, well, obviously, they want you to go in between here, which honestly scares the crap out of me, but that's where they put it, and I don't believe it's going to come out of there, oh, there we go, okay, that was lucky, my little bucket of stuff here, okay, and then this one, which didn't seem to be screwed in all the way, but, oh well, and then be very careful when messing around near the escapement gear, as I say this when I'm doing it left-handed, and that's the last screw right here that needs to come out, usually they're all the same screw, so you can kind of get by with just putting them all in the same place, now, another little quick inspection here is to see what's going on here, okay, so this spring here is on that, okay, so that's how that works, okay, it's always good to get a good idea of what, where all of these are, where they go, take a picture, that's the best thing I can tell you if you're just starting out, take a picture of it at all angles, now, we're going to start by lifting from the bottom, just take it very slow, very carefully, okay, now, the first thing that needs to come out is the hammer, I see, because it's got this wire here holding it on, which I honestly have never seen before, okay, then, and then this front gear is going to come off with the, with the whole movement here, with the whole front plate, okay, we're stuck on something over here, like somewhere, oh, it's probably this, this messed up, I'm not sure what's going on here, I think that's stuck, well, okay, so we've got to kind of take things one step at a time here, it looks like some of these are not wanting to come out, remember that hammer I said I would never need, guess what, I don't need it, there, be very careful when doing what I just did, okay, now, you're also going to get the escapement gear, which is the very top gear that kind of sticks out the front, and then just kind of, just kind of gingerly work that through the front of that plate, sorry, I was just inspecting a few things here, we're going to widen this angle just a tad, but anyway, so, she is apart for the most part here, I'm just setting that front plate out of my way, so now, I can see what the heck is going on here, and we can just start taking these out, first, we'll start with these levers on the top, and I'll explain where all of these go later, this one might be stuck too, I got that one out, it's just because it's got a bunch of crud all over it, but you know, you gotta, you gotta give this, this movement credit though, as messed up as it is with all the crud and dirt and, you know, extra oil, I have to say the fact that it kept running is amazing, and that's a testament to the people that made this, that's all I gotta say, Seth Thomas man, good stuff, okay, and then this main spring, which are held in by something I'm going to cut off, because it will annoy the crowd, pardon the noise, but I gotta cut these, it's held in here, I'll just show you real quick, and this is common for a lot of older Seth Thomas clocks, it's held in by these little things here, they're actually just nails that somebody put through here, I don't really know why they did this, but it kind of actually makes things, I don't know, you almost don't need them, actually you really don't, but I'm just gonna, you know what, I'm gonna try to save it, just for the fact that you never know when you're gonna need a good nail, and I spent a crap one, okay, widen back out, okay, now I can lift this off, and it usually gets kind of tough toward the top or the front, so you gotta kind of work it out, that's common, okay, that's the time side there, this side here also has the same setup, let me see here, I don't know if I'll be able to save this one or not, there, I think I got it, I think I got it, I do, I got it, yay, pardon me, I just, you know, I can't help myself, but anyway, I'm just gonna give this a little bit of a squirt of oil, work this off of here, oil can be your friend or your worst enemy, I swear, okay, that did make it a little easier, okay, another thing to have close by is a good rag, okay, now, initial inspection of the back plate, okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and show you what's going on here, okay, those dental tools I was telling you about, I'm just gonna use one of them briefly to illustrate some of the buildup on these, that's all dirt, oil, leftover stuff, I almost did it, I almost did it, but I didn't, give me credit for that, come on, all right, and then there's another one here, and I'm just gonna wipe those off on the back side around where the springs were, you can see the outlines of the springs on here, actually, you could actually get away with using a little bit of a solvent like paint thinner or something while doing this, but I don't like to put any other chemicals on here that I don't really need to, but I mean, it's up to you, it's whatever you want to do, whatever you think will make it easier, but I like to give it a good wipe down with a rag all over the back front, especially around the pivot holes, okay, and the front plate over here, and then actually, I'm going to take off this gear, pardon me, all you need is a small flat bladed screwdriver, and what there is, is on the other side, there's this little hole right here, okay, that's a hole for this little doodad to go in, and you'll see when I lift it up, see, what you do is you lift it up, and I like to take two fingers, put it behind here, and then just give it a little push like that, and then if you want to finish it up with a pair of pliers and look cool, you can like this, just pull that off, and the gear comes right off, there we go, okay, and we'll just wipe that down, and there's a pretty good buildup of gunk here, so I'm getting my dental tool in here and kind of cleaning that out, but this is the one I definitely need to replace or put a new pushing in, now remember I said something earlier about that little wooden tool, I just kind of put it in there, give it a few little twists, gets a bunch of the gunk out of there, there's a lot that came through the other side, a lot of what I'm doing here is, it's kind of up to you whether or not you want to do it, because the cleaning process, which I'm going to outline here, is usually pretty good at getting rid of that, so it's not necessary, but I always like to make sure, I'm very picky about making sure things are as clean as I can, you know, just by hand before I even think about putting them in the cleaner, so that way it gets even cleaner, give this a little bit of a little scrapey scrape, be careful when you do this, because you do kind of want to keep the movement looking good, so when you have a movement that's got a buttload of scrapes on it, it doesn't tend to look very good, so I usually do it very, very lightly, as a matter of fact, I probably should just use my my wooden thing here, because it'll work just as well for removing a lot of that, yeah see, every clock is different, I kind of learn as I go too, I'm always learning, that's why I always say I'm not an expert, and I never will be, this is purely a hobby, this is something that I enjoy doing, it's fun, it's unique, and then I like to clean off all the the pivots or the ends of the arbors and the gears, give them a little once over here, just kind of be careful, you don't want to get a bunch of like rag stuff on there, good cotton cloth is just fine, but this is just what I happen to have near me, so I'm just kind of working with this, and it works, but you can use whatever you want, and then this here, this is the the hour tube and gear, I just take that off this, but anyway, I'm going to continue cleaning this here, I will be right back here, because it appears my battery is dying, so I will talk to you again real soon.