how often do i wind it?

Most weight-driven Vienna wall clocks run for eight days. You should aim to wind them once a week on a set schedule. Sunday mornings work well for most people. Always wind smoothly and steadily. Letting the weight drop back sharply can strip teeth from the winding barrel. The mechanism needs gentle handling.

My grandfather left me a clock and the pendulum swings but it stops after about five minutes every time I try to start it, why?

The clock is likely out of beat. The tick and the tock need to be even for the escapement to function properly. If the case does not hang squarely on the wall, the pendulum swing becomes uneven. You can sometimes fix this by nudging the bottom of the case left or right until the ticking sounds balanced.

what does grand sonnerie mean?

It means a complex striking mechanism. These clocks strike the quarter hours, and then strike the full hour count at every quarter. You usually see three weights driving this setup.

We are looking to put one of these in our hallway but I want to know if the ticking sound is going to be really loud at night?

They are generally quite quiet compared to spring-driven mantel clocks. The long pendulum swing and heavy wooden case tend to muffle the mechanical noise. However, a quiet house at night amplifies any sound. Hallways with hard floors and bare walls bounce the ticking around, making it more noticeable.

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Victorian Vienna Wall Clocks

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These weight-driven regulators feature slender glazed cases designed to showcase the swinging pendulum and weights, originally built to provide reliable, highly accurate timekeeping for prosperous nineteenth-century homes and railway stations across the Austrian Empire.