If your cuckoo clock doesn’t sound quite the same as those heard on our YouTube movies, the first thing you’ll want to do is to check the position of your gong.Before every cuckoo call, there is traditionally a gong that is struck by a mechanical hammer. This adds depth of sound to the cuckoo clock call. If your hammer is missing the gong, or if the hammer is too close to the gong, you might
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Adjust your Cuckoo Clock Gong
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010North Coast Imports’s /design Line featured in ReadyMade Mag!
Monday, January 25th, 2010Thanks to the creative people at ReadyMade Magazine for noticing our ClassicSpace cuckoo from our NEW /design line.
Welcome to the Blogosphere Bill!
Monday, January 25th, 2010Our friend Bill Maier has recently started his own blog to document his impressive collection of rare, antique “Vienna” Regulator Timepieces. Here’s a particularly stellar example from his collection:Gilded bronze skeletonized laterndluhr by Fertbauer, C. 1810. Overall height 67″. Seconds beating, knife edge suspension riding on a gimbal. The gimbal is held by two L shaped brackets through the
Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his – Wrist?
Sunday, January 24th, 2010From ScienceDaily:The world’s most precise clock – on which all time-keeping and navigation systems are based – might be made as small as a wristwatch with a new design proposed by an international team of physicists.A new class of atomic clocks of at least equivalent accuracy could be made much smaller and simpler by trapping aluminium, gallium, cesium or rubidium atoms in a lattice of laser
Ytterbium for Next-Generation Atomic Clocks
Sunday, January 24th, 2010Cesium has been the element of choice, thus far, for the most accurate clocks. It is in use in our civilian time standard.But make way, Cesium:An experimental atomic clock based on ytterbium atoms is about four times more accurate than it was several years ago, giving it a precision comparable to that of the NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, the nation’s civilian time standard, scientists at the
Binary Clock Fun
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010A Binary Clock is a way of displaying the digital time in binary code. For example…Reading a BCD clock: Add the values of each column of LEDs to get six decimal digits. There are two columns each for hours, minutes and seconds.Here’s a fun interpretation of the idea from Instructibles:The Flock Clock uses male and female drinking birds to display time. Binary addition of the female birds (left
The Weather Clock
Thursday, January 14th, 2010We, at North Coast Imports, love the idea of new and artistic displays of important information. After all, this is the essence of a mechanical clock!Here’s a great example from Sean Carney:I took an old clock, removed the mechanism and replaced it with an Arduino (micro-controller) that checks the weather on the Environment Canada website every fifteen minutes and update the hands accordingly.
New Designs, Winners
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010Here’s a great design, won the NAWCC 2009 Craft Contest, First Place and People’s Choice Awards.From Bower Clock Company:”The Vinion was completed in May 2009 and was awarded People’s Choice in the Craft Competition of the National Association of Watch And Clock Collectors 2009 National Convention. Nathan Bowers also was awarded first place in the single train clock category. The intricate spoke
The Rack Must Fall!
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010How does a cuckoo know how many times to call? Why is my clock only calling once when the hands say 3:00?These are great questions, and the ingenious works of a mechanical clock can do it, but a few things have to be in proper adjustment. Here are some things to watch out for to keep your clock working, and keep your cuckoo calling the right number.First, check the hands.We already have an
The Best Way to Set a Mechanical Calendar Clock
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010On the back side of the dial there are levers. Two levers behind the 3:00 and one behind the 9:00.The one behind the 9:00 is the chime shutoff. The one further behind the 3:00 is the auto night shutoff. The lever at the front (behind the 3:00) is the date advance lever.Please have your customer follow this procedure in shutting the clock.1. Move the minute hand COUNTER-clockwise until both
