A mechanical cuckoo clock is powered by the gravity of the weights and is regulated by an adjustable pendulum. Adjusting is done on the back side of pendulum by moving the screw up or down, depending on wheter you want to slow it down or speed it up. Mechanical cuckoo clocks also have a manual switch for the night time. The only exception are 8 day muscial clocks, which have an automatic night off.
Mechanical Cuckoo Clock Variations
There are 4 different versions of mechanical movement:
• 1 Day Running Time
• 8 Day Running Time
• 1 Day Running Time with Music
• 8 Day Running time with Music
1 day clocks have to be wound up once every 24h and have smaller size weights, while 8 day clocks have to be wound up once a week and have larger weights attached to them. So, the best way to tell them apart is to pay attention to the weights.
Clocks can come with either two or three weights. Each weight has its own function. One weight winds the clock, one makes the cuckoo run, and one runs extra features such as dancing people, music, or waterwheels.
Mechanical Cuckoo Clocks
Materials and Parts
It is well known that German Black Forest cuckoo clocks are made out of handcarved and handpainted wooden parts. Wood used for carvings is lime wood (also known as bass or linden wood), local Black Forest. It is very soft and good for carving, but has to dried for about 3 years before it can be used. If wood is not dried properly, it would split during carving.
German mechanical movements are made out of brass and stainless steel to prevent any rust affecting the mechanism. All our mechanical movements have a "Made in Germany" quality tag.
Cuckoo whistles are made out of wood, nylon, and cotton. In the past, they used goat skin instead of the nylon and cotton combination, but it would dry out and crack in short time, hence the change to synthetic materials.
Chains are made out of stainless steel and weights are made of cast iron.
The music box is the only part that is not made in Germany, as our neighbors in Switzerland have a huge tradition of making those.
