Strimmer line for a clock repair?
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:21 pm
OK, I already asked this on a clock forum and was basically told not to consider such a bodge, but the family's ancient long case clock, now living with me since I had the old place done up and found tenants for it, has had the horological equivalent of a footballing injury in that this:
fell out of this:
causing this:
The reason that the striker weight fell out is that the gimp (no, not the favourite open source image manipulation software of that name) snapped at the very moment when the weight had just reached its uppermost position, so that weight had about four feet to drop onto the poor floor.
I'm not bothered about the floor, that part is normally hidden because there's a whopping great clock standing there, but I'm looking to restring both the striker - whose gimp it was that allowed the weight to fall - and the weight that keeps the clock going, with a safer, more modern alternative.
My first thought was nylon monofil, so Dad asked at the factory shop what was available but sadly, even their 60lb stuff, although sufficiently strong for its load, is way too thin, so much so that two strands of it would tend to wind into the same groove in the drum when I wind the old thing up, which would prevent it from unfurling smoothly as the weight falls and then it was suggested to me that the stuff used in strimmers is thick enough but the question is whether that sort of nylon is sufficiently strong to take the load of the weight as it's being wound in as well as the far greater load on the clock side, which I'm keen to change while I'm in there.
So is the strimmer stuff suitable? Breaking strain needs to be at least 40 Lb to be certain of success and can I find such information anywhere? Not bloody likely! Garden equipment suppliers are all telling me that strimmer nylon isn't graded by its breaking strain, since its intended purposes don't include pulling heavy things through fast flowing water, or replacing broken gimp in ancient timepieces.
fell out of this:
causing this:
The reason that the striker weight fell out is that the gimp (no, not the favourite open source image manipulation software of that name) snapped at the very moment when the weight had just reached its uppermost position, so that weight had about four feet to drop onto the poor floor.
I'm not bothered about the floor, that part is normally hidden because there's a whopping great clock standing there, but I'm looking to restring both the striker - whose gimp it was that allowed the weight to fall - and the weight that keeps the clock going, with a safer, more modern alternative.
My first thought was nylon monofil, so Dad asked at the factory shop what was available but sadly, even their 60lb stuff, although sufficiently strong for its load, is way too thin, so much so that two strands of it would tend to wind into the same groove in the drum when I wind the old thing up, which would prevent it from unfurling smoothly as the weight falls and then it was suggested to me that the stuff used in strimmers is thick enough but the question is whether that sort of nylon is sufficiently strong to take the load of the weight as it's being wound in as well as the far greater load on the clock side, which I'm keen to change while I'm in there.
So is the strimmer stuff suitable? Breaking strain needs to be at least 40 Lb to be certain of success and can I find such information anywhere? Not bloody likely! Garden equipment suppliers are all telling me that strimmer nylon isn't graded by its breaking strain, since its intended purposes don't include pulling heavy things through fast flowing water, or replacing broken gimp in ancient timepieces.