On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 16:11:18 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Jeff
Wisnia quickly quoth:

Larry Jaques wrote:
Where can I find one of those nice little pen-style electrical contact
burnishing pens (cheap), guys? Feeler-gauge types would be OK, too.

My 3-year old stove is making serious arcing sounds of late.

Two days after reading your post our kitchen wall "Regulator" style
pendulum clock stopped at 5:20 AM.

Ain't no way you can hang that one on me, bud.


It's about 25 years old and has a somewhat unusual movement, which dates
from just before inexpensive quartz clocks hit the market and took over.

What, it lasted only 25 years between maintenances?


A simple mechanism, with a toggling action snaps a set of contacts
closed when the clock runs down a bit whereupon the motor run a few
seconds until the clockspring is fully wound and the contacts snap open.

Pretty cool.


Our clock stopped because the contacts in that "switch" were a little
burned and didn't connect when they sprung closed.

That'll do 'er.


They were relatively easy to access and I used the striker strip from a
book of paper matches to burnish them with, a trick I'd learned a
zillion years ago. I followed up by running a folded strip of paper
through them to clean off any abrasive left on them

It's running like a clock again.

That was timely. groan #2

I'm just going to have to break down and buy a set of the things.
I don't like mickey mousing electronics or electrical stuff
unless there's no way around it, and then it's only temporary.
I've used point files before, too, but replaced the points later.
Thanks for the tip, though.


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