You are in the clock tips set of pages.

• Exploring Your New Old Clock
• Winding Your Clock
• You Are Here: Is Your Clock Ticking Evenly?
• The Winding Schedule: Living with a Wind-Up Clock

Is Your Clock Ticking Evenly?

If your clock stops running, the fix might be as simple as shimming one side with a popsicle stick to make it tick correctly. This page explains how to do it and has a simulator you can use to explore the process. It's better to learn on a fake clock than your own!

If you listen carefully to the tick-tock sounds your clock makes, you should hear an even tick-tock pattern. If you ever played an instrument and used a metronome, your clock should sound like that — an even pattern of ticks and tocks.

Clock-jargon for the tick-tock noise pattern is "beat."

• A clock is "in beat" when it is ticking evenly.
• A clock is "out of beat" when it is ticking unevenly.

If a clock is not level side-to-side (this is an oversimplification, but let's go with it) the clock will be out of beat. You can use popsicle sticks or folded paper under one side of the clock to shim it to where it is in beat.

Use the following simulator to see what this sounds like. Here are some usage tips for the simulator:

• The clock is tilting to the left now.
• Click Start Ticking to start the tick-tock audio.
• Decide for yourself whether the clock is in beat and check your judgment by clicking the Is Clock in Beat? button.
• Use the Tilt Clock Left and Tilt Clock Right buttons to adjust the clock. Listen to how the tick-tock pattern changes.
• Correct clock settings for the simulation are described at the bottom of the page.

What if the shelf where your clock sits is not level? Very few surfaces are. Click the Make Shelf Not Level button to simulate this situation. Tilt the clock to bring it back into beat. Check your work with the Is Clock in Beat? button.

How much shimming is required to put a clock into beat? Sometimes very little. Take a look at the following picture. Just a couple of greeting cards beneath one side of the clock were enough to make it run in beat. A clock that is tipped out of beat just a little bit can be enough to make it run poorly or not at all.

Once you get your clock to tick in beat, you might be interested in reading The Winding Schedule: Living with a Wind-Up Clock.

Sometimes it doesn't take much to shim a clock to where it is in beat.

Here are the correct settings for the clock simluation to be in beat:

• With shelf level the clock should be sitting level on the shelf.
• With shelf not level the clock should be tipped to the right two clicks. The left side of the clock will be in the air, representing shims beneath the left side.