Wooden Clocks
Wooden clocks with metal movements come in a wonderful variety of styles and sizes; from antique to funky and new. Wooden clocks have a couple of main sub categories, which are:
The Wound Clocks
The Wound Clocks is a time piece that is kept running by manually winding the clock up with a key. The key is normally inserted into a small hole on the body of the clocks, which when turned powers up the clock. This sort of wooden clock tells time through a regulated spring movement, and common examples of Wound Clocks are: the Wooden Mantle Clocks, Anniversary Clocks. Wound Clocks are normally small enough to be moved around without interfering with their ability to tell time accurately.
The Pendulum Clocks
The other and perhaps most common type of wooden clocks are the Pendulum Clocks, which is normally more accurate in its time keeping than the wound clocks. This type of wooden clocks uses weights, called pendulums, to regulate their function and keep accurate time. Until the 1930s, they were generally the most accurate clocks in existence. However if the clock is moved at all the swing of the pendulum is altered which effects their ability to tell time accurately. Examples of these clocks include Longcase Clocks and the Wooden Pendulum Wall Clocks.
Longcase clocks
A Longcase clock is a tall, freestanding, pendulum clock with the pendulum held inside the tower of the case. There are three main types of longcase clocks, which are the "grandfather", the "grandmother", and the "granddaughter". Although there is no hard and fast rule the general consensus seems to be that a clock smaller than 1.5 meters (5 ft) is a granddaughter; over 1.5 meters (5 ft) is a grandmother; and over 1.8 meters (6 ft) is a grandfather.
Wooden Works Clocks
Wooden Works Clocks are clocks where there internal works, the cogs and gears, are also made out of wood. These clocks are relatively rare due to the fact that they are hard to make. Many of these Wooden Works Clocks were made by the Black Forest Movement in Germany, and are usually beautifully hand carved. Despite the relative fragility of these pieces they were still real, working clocks. Some Wooden Work Clocks even have their internal mechanisms still in good shape and they can even tell time now! Cuckoo Clocks are probably the most common example of this type of wooden clock, but there are other types such as Organ Clocks.
All of these types of wooden clocks have been imitated and “updated” to have battery operated versions now on the market, and there is even a band of enthusiastic hobbyist that recreate the beauty of the wooden internal working by hand.
