Grandfather Clock Movements are easy to select if you know what to look for.

You need to choose a company that has been around a long time and make sure that they are easy to repair. If you look at all of the major clock manufacturers like Howard Miller Clocks, Sligh, Ridgeway and BifanoClockWorks they all use either Hermle, Kieninger or Urgos and all of them have been making them for a very long time. BUT EVEN BETTER Hermle and Kieninger have plants in America so we can use german quality movements made right here in the USA. Of the 3 company's Kieninger was bought by Howard Miller so for the home clock maker that leaves Hermle and Urgos. I would use Hermle because all the clock repair people I know say they are the easiest to repair. They also have more than twice the models available than Urgos.

Here is a Hermle 461-053/94 chain driven grandfather movement. These are bigger than all of the other movements. They are either chain driven or cable driven. Here is what the numbers mean. The 461 is a Westminster the 1161 is a Triple chime. The 0 in the 053 says it is a chain driven, the 53 says it is 53 mm long in the shaft. There is a 853 and that means it is a cable driven with a shaft size of 53mm.

A good reason for using a chain driven one is that anyone can change the chains on it if they ever go bad. A cable driven one has to be sent to a clock repair man to have the cables replaced or the springs changed on them. The chain driven ones are a lot cheaper BUT the cable driven ones look nicer. Pictured to the right is the 1161-853/94 a triple chime cable driven movement. The last number after the / is the pendulum length in cm. So this pendulum from the center of the hand shaft to the tip of the bob is 94cm or 940mm or 37". TIP: Also it is a good idea to buy the movement before you make the clock case and not the other way around on your first one. It is a lot easier to build around the movement than to have to find a one that may not exist.

Do you have a a treasured keepsake that was passed down from someone you love and does not work anymore?. Trying to find a movement for a clock, that does not have a name on the clock or the movement, can be easy to do. Even clocks and movements that have names on them but are not available anymore can be repaired. Follow these simple steps on how to get the correct clock movements for your clock.

Now that you have learned a lot about this you may be asking "What do these movements cost?" Well here is a place that I use to buy all of my clock movements