Hello,

In Tran Duy Ly's Books, several Howard Regulators are shown with a "pendulum rod of wood, and loaded glass jar for pendulum ball". It looks like a single jar mercury pendulum. What is the jar loaded with ? Similar looking pendulums from Waterbury and New Haven have a brass cylinder pendulum loaded with lead or lead shot. But I have seen no pictures or details of the Howard pendulums anywhere.

Thanks !

Charlie Haywood

Charles,
I was under the impression that early clocks did use mercury for temperature compensation. I don't know when they stopped. Lower end models and later models had the ones that had the mercury look, but were as you describe.

In Tran's Clock Vol.1, page 105, there is a picture of the No. 36 Regulator. It shows two versions of the NO 36. The first one has the single vial mystery pendulum. The second one has the quad vial pendulum described as "Mercurial".

One of the round pendulum bobs described as "loaded" is filled with zinc. Perhaps this is the case with the single vial style. The description says that it is accurate as any clock except a compensated clock. That makes me think it is not mercury, but zinc.

I don't have one of these. Maybe someone who has one can end the speculation.

Tom Seymour
NAWCC #41293
IHC #104
IHC Exec.V.P.

I dug deep and found a picture of the pendulum...

http://www.chaywood.com/howard12.jpg

It looks to be filled with shot...

Charlie

Charlie,
This is probably similar to what you saw in your reference book. It is from the Howard Catalogue. In reading through the additional information in the book, there is no reference to what the "loaded jar" was loaded with.

Tom Seymour
NAWCC #41293
IHC #104
IHC Exec.V.P.

I ance had that clock. It's called a Watchmaker's Regulator. In this case, the glass jar would have filled with lead shot. The adjustment rod runs all the way through the jar, so mercury would have leaked out.