A Special Musical Clock by Emilian Wehrle

Fall is here, and as the weather cools we start to spend more time indoors. During the cold months we really pick up steam focusing on our collection of Black Forest clocks.Today as I was doing some "house keeping" dusting the collection... I thought of sharing this wonderful clock we have with you.

This fantastic clock has been in our care for many years.

Made C. 1874 this Singing Bird Clock (Singvogeluhr) by Emilian Wehrle of Furtwangen... is as impressive today as the day it was made.

The fully feathered bird is 6.5 inches from beak to tail. It is fully automated with movements in his beak, head, and tail.

Perched on the top of the clock on a carved vase of fruit and leaves, it is clearly visible and looks alive.

The carvings on this clock are all done in walnut, and the style of the case is very unique.

This clock utilizes a robust brass plate movement, with large double pumping bellow system mounted above the clock works (very similar to Wehrle's Trumpeter and Flute Clocks.)

The clock movement generates it own air pressure and by opening and closing a valve, air is moved through a large flute with a plunger. A cam wheel on the back operates the valve and the plunger to reproduce the sound of the song bird while controlling the bird and the Automation.

The beak runs in perfect sequence with the large song and boy does this bird look and sound alive!

This clock is featured in Emilian Wehrle's 1874 Catalog as No. 1 (see illustration). Originally, it cost of 180 Gold Marks in 1874. Just to put this into perspective, a very nice Beha cuckoo could be had for 25 marks.

Very few of these Singing Bird Clocks were made, even fewer survived. Making them almost impossible to locate today.

I am not aware of a museum worldwide that has a example of a Em. Wehrle Singing Bird Clock, although there are a few in private collections.

This unique clock was also published in the 2008 edition of Schwarzwalduhren, by Berthold Schaaf (The authoritative text on Black Forest Clocks, see sidebar for a list of other recommended reading and resources.)


Best,

Justin J. Miller

blackforestclocks.org

For more information on Singing Bird or Whistling Automata:

Article, Whistling Clock Peddler, Singing Birds in a Cage

...and here's a video of a modern "slide whistle" mechanism Justin describes above:

Handmade Orrery

I found some great pictures of a handmade Ferguson's Orrery from Makezine



Designed circa 1750, the core of the mechanism depends on gears of differing ratios to illustrate the movement of the moon's nodes and apogee as the earth revolves around the sun. It can be used to illustrate many things, including eclipses." Jim further states he was inspired by Ian Coote, see Ian's page about the orrery here.



[via Makezine, via Tina Buescher]

We have offered a few different Orrery clocks in our collection in the past. Each of them are works of art with limited availability. Be sure to watch this space so you know when we have another one available!

A Great Old Video of the Black Forest Clock Industry

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Alas, there are no more producers of European mechanical Anniversary Clocks. So many of these fine arts no longer exist. BUT, you can see a woman making a mechanical alarm clock that looks very similar to our very popular Sternreiter Alarm Clock! Quality mechanical items like these are very rare these days. We are very pleased to still be able to offer them. Contact your local clock dealer and ask about our Sternreiter mechanical alarm clocks.

What is an Orchestrion Anyway?

A few weeks ago I did a post on "Orchestrion Hall" and all the goodies found therein. It occurred to me that the word Orchestrion may not be so readily understood these days, so here's some pics and movies with Orchestrions.

An Orchestrion is a mechanical musical instrument that starts with a large "player pipe organ." Just as there have always been player pianos or pianolas, there were pipe organs that played automatically from punched cards or punched rolls of paper. An Orchestrion goes even further by including a small orchestra of instruments that all play automatically from the same roll of music. Orchestrions included the pipe organ, drums, a piano, sometimes reed pipes, sometimes even string instruments.

Here you can see the mechanisms of a Welte Orchestrion. Notice the very large bellows and air chest in the bottom.



Here are some YouTube movies with some notable Orchestrions, including the magnificent collection at the Nethercutt Museum in Los Angeles. The first video was one I took on the sly, when no one was looking.





Followers of this blog know that we are very interested in mechanical musical instruments of all types, including organ clocks, flute clocks, trumpeter clocks, cuckoo clocks, music boxes... The Orchestrion could be considered the master granddaddy of all of these fascinating devices.

Orchestrion Hall, Baltimore

A few days ago, my Twitter followers may be been slightly mystified by my Tweets about finding hidden treasures in Baltimore.



I had the inestimable pleasure of seeing a private collection of clocks, mechanical musical instruments, old fans, lamps, and more... all very rare and very interesting.

The tower clock collection was particularly impressive. The house was fitted with several tower clock dials on the outside. I've gone down that street many years and never looked up to notice them. There is even a dragon outside that strikes a bell with his tail. On the inside, there were some large tower clock movements (like the one pictured above) with slots cut in the floor below them so that the pendulum could swing in the room below.

I did a reblog post a few weeks ago from a Steampunk site about old tower clock towers being converted into apartments - but those places didn't have clocks in them.





There were several tower clocks, most with 3-legged gravity escapements. The whole house seemed to tick away, as if the collector were living inside a giant engine room.




...That's just the tower clocks, in addition there are Winterhalter u. Hoffmeier tubular chimes, regulator master clocks, and Egyptian Revival clocks aplenty...

The place isn't called Orchestrion Hall for nothing. The collector is a worldwide authority on mechanical organ restoration, particularly the very rare and very excellent Welte orchestrions.




He has more mechanical musical instruments too, including a very loud band organ.



His shop is in the basement below, and he uses all turn-of-the-century, belt-driven machines. When I jokingly asked where the steam engine was he pointed to an original early electric motor, and around the corner (in the basement) there was a HUGE single-cylinder Diesel engine.

The collection also includes fans...




This one has a light bulb that's used only for impedance, to slow down the fan.

I wish I had more pictures. This place was a treasure trove of fascinating stuff!

Thanks to Arcadian Clock for some of the pictures above.

Mechanical Cell Phone

Any connoisseur of mechanical wonders should follow the blog over at The Long Now Foundation. Here is an excerpted post from their blog:



Early on in the Clock project we saw that of all the modern timepiece companies few were doing truly new things. One of the rare exceptions was Ulysse Nardin. Once we completed the first Clock prototype in fact we hosted Ludwig Oechslin their chief design innovator for several months here in San Francisco to evaluate our Clock which was very instructive.

Long Now member and alumni Camille Davila sent me a note about a recent development at Ulysse Nardin, a cell phone that is charged by an offset weight swinging around from the ambient motion of the owner. This is an adaptation from mechanical self winding watch technology of course, but it is very cool to see it crossing over into other personal electronics. You can see more on this on their website here.

The Highest Craftsmanship

There really isn't enough attention drawn to the beauty of craftsmanship in an Original Black Forest Cuckoo Clock. One must marvel at the complexity and quality of the mechanical clock works, particularly when these are made today in the midst of a throwaway market.

In an age when you are paid to destroy and throw away aging machines, these Black Forest clockmakers are brave craftsman. They boldly construct these pieces according to the traditions of a forgotten era. Each precision-cut tooth of every wheel is painstakingly adjusted. The actions that these gears perform is something that is easily synthesized with some plastic, solder, and silicon, but the brass and steel make the experience more real somehow. The action ITSELF is more of an artistic piece.

Sometimes it is not enough to ask "WHAT" but to ask "HOW." A mechanical clock performs the action of telling time in a far more interesting and fulfilling way. As each second ticks by on your mechanical clock take a moment to reflect on the fact that you aren't wasting batteries... you aren't polluting the atmosphere... take a moment to marvel on the inventive way your clock or watch works.

related sites:
Artistic re-interpretations of the cuckoo clock

How cuckoo clock music is supposed to work

Below you can watch a movie (visit our YouTube channel!) with a cuckoo music box functioning properly. Sometimes minor adjustments need to be made to the two arms connecting the clock mechanism to the music mechanism. As you watch the video, pay attention to the two black arms that reach in from the left side. One on top and one in the middle (touching the spinning fan-fly or governor).



In the first part of the video you see one cuckoo call and music right away. The second part shows how the music mechanism is first started by the cuckoo mechanism, held while the cuckoo calls, and then released to allow it to play.

The thicker, black metal arm on top unlatches the music drum and the music mechanism so that the drum starts to turn. It is abruptly stopped however by the second, thinner wire that touches the brass fan-fly. This stopping wire remains in place until the cuckoo bird has finished its call.

If this second wire didn't stop the fan-fly from spinning, the music would play while the cuckoo bird calls and cause cacophony.

Once the bird has finished the call the wire gets out of the way, allowing the fan-fly to spin and the music to play.

As the tune reaches its end, the black metal finger on top should be far enough away from the music box arm below it to allow the latch to fall in the hole and stop the music.

Watch the video again:



This video is provided as an example of how this SHOULD work. If you make adjustments to your cuckoo clock music make sure that they are INCREMENTAL adjustments. The tiniest change in the placement of these two arms will be all the adjustment you should make. Any adjustments to either the clock or the music mechanism should be done by a trained professional. The gears, teeth, and wheels inside either mechanism are very delicate and precise. Please don't try to make repairs to either mechanism, but you may try to make tiny adjustments to the two wires that connect the two mechanisms as described above.

NOTE: The movie here shows a music mechanism in an 8-day cuckoo clock. This is important because most 8-day clocks don't allow the music to play on the half-hour.

NOTE: The clock featured in this movie is the 2005 award winner of the VDS Clock of the Year. This clock was produced as a limited edition of only 111 pieces for the 111th anniversary of Rombach und Haas.

A few pieces are still available: