Powered by Clockwork

Gallery opened July 2005

Updated: 21 Nov 2017

Clockwork tram info added

Clockwork power, in the sense of energy storage by a coiled spring, is one of the oldest means of applying power known to man, being invented between 1500 and 1510 by Peter Henlein of Nuremberg. The most common use of clockwork was in, er, clocks, but this page restricts itself to its attempted use as a propulsive power.

THE CLOCKWORK EXPLOSIVE BOAT: 1864
Robert Whitehead is well-known as the originator of that boon to mankind, the torpedo. He was born in Little Bolton in 1823, into a family of engineers. By 1864 he was manager of an engineering company in Fuime, near Trieste, which did work for the Austrian Navy. Whitehead and an Austrian Navy Captain, Giovanni de Luppis, collaborated on an unmanned self-propelled boat designed to blow up blockading warships. It was called the "Der Kustenbrander" ie The Coastal Fire Ship. Whitehead tried for several months to help Luppis with his invention but they failed to come up with a practical weapon, there being serious problems with the clockwork engine and the tiller steering.

Left: The Clockwork Kustenbrander
This is a picture of a model of the craft. No pictures of the real thing are known to exist. The propellor and rudder are on the right.

Regrettably I have so far found no details of the engine, but I strongly suspect it was very short on both power and endurance. Whitehead later used compressed-air to power his torpedoes; as with the clockwork tram described below, clockwork was superseded by air as the latter proved to be a much more effective "spring" for energy storage, despite the losses inherent in compressing air and throwing away the heat generated by doing it.

Left: Clockwork model submarine by Neil Mclaren
Clockwork submarines are being made today, but I hasten to add they are model ones, built by Neil Mclaren. See his website at www.mclarenclockworksubmarines.com.
This is a model of the German submarine U30, a type VIIA boat as used in WW2 in the Battle of The Atlantic.

Left: Clockwork motor for model submarine
Typical motor by Neil Mclaren. I understand this one was converted from an old clock.
The propellor drive shaft, with universal joint, is at the right. The ruler is 6 inches long.

THE CLOCKWORK TRAM: 1875
Unlikely as it may seem... it has at least once been seriously proposed to transport people by means of clockwork. Here is the only example I have found so far.
A clockwork tram was built by Thomas Middleton and Co, of Southwark, London, to the design of a Belgian, E H Leveaux. It was used to haul a tramcar at the Lillie Bridge depot of the Metropolitan and District Railway (London) in May 1875, reaching a maximum speed of 7 mph over a half-mile run. Experiments continued into 1876, but were then abandoned.
Leveaux received US patent 169,816 for a clockwork tram in November 1875; he was living in Hammersmith in London at the time.

Left: Clockwork-driven tram: 1875
There were two large spring barrels A and A' mounted under the floor; here I have coloured them a tasteful shade of pink. Each barrel contained 3 large clock-style springs. The two barrels were geared to turn together, and then geared up through f to drive the axle on the right.
It was intended that at intervals the springs could be rewound via a shaft M carrying a radius arm Q with gear P at its end; the radius arm was raised and gear P meshed with a gear on the tram. Shaft M was to be connected to a suitable stationary engine or motor.
A system of clutches allowed the tram to move in either direction.
From US patent 169,816

The compressed-air trams used the same principle, in a sense, as the elasticity of the compressed air can be regarded as a sort of spring. They, however had a much greater range and were reasonably successful.
Thanks to Chuck Bencik for locating the patent.

CLOCKWORK CARS
Almost every conceivable form of power was used on early motor cars. Some stored energy rather than generating it (as in a petrol engine) and the most successful of these were electric cars, which carried around a heavy load of rechargeable batteries, as indeed they still do today. Less promising storage methods were carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) under pressure, and compressed air. Even less promising was the use of clockwork, where the power to be stored had to be applied in mechanical form rather than by filling a tank. Some intended power sources were either imaginary or incomprehensible; see the page Diverse Forms of Power in 1894.

Left: Clockwork car: pre-1895
An unidentified man on a spring driven vehicle at some date before 1895. The vehicle was driven by four large springs, presumably of the clock type, mounted inside what appears to be a cylindrical housing at the rear. It could go three miles on one winding, but just how much effort was required for that winding is not currently known.

Left: Clockwork car: 1890
This three-seat clockwork car was built by Ingersoll Moore, of Bloomimgton, IL. It was driven by four clockwork motors, each having three flat coiled springs. These were connected by gearing and all could be wound up by a lever on the driver's right side. Double action ratchets allowed the lever to wind the springs as it was moved in either direction. This must have been extremely hard work as you were effectively rowing the car along with one hand. No details of its range are currently known.
Regrettably the picture is of poor quality.

Attempts to track down Mr Ingersoll Moore threw up only this intriguing fragment:
"ON a cold November evening in 1895, I went to the country to bring in a young cow. As I was leading her along, she took a notion to run, dragging and throwing me head foremost into a barbed wire fence. When I reached home an hour later, I found my face was cut in several places, a piece of flesh torn out of one cheek by the barbed wire, and one ear torn so that the lower lobe was separated and hung down.
"My wife and daughter, not feeling competent to handle the case at that time, called a Scientist healer. We tied a cloth over the wound to cover it up, and Christian Science did the rest. Four days later I went to work and kept right on as usual, with but little inconvenience. The ear came together, the cheek filled out, and the scar has already disappeared. — Ingersoll Moore, Bloomington, Ill."
The name is absolutely correct, and the date fits, but unfortunately all we learn is that Mr Ingersoll Moore was a a farmer and a Christian Scientist.

THE MECCANO CLOCKWORK MOTORS
To engineers of a certain age, Meccano holds some poignant memories. Clockwork motors were available to power the models. Here are a couple that I have.

Left: The big Meccano motor
This motor was produced in the late Fifties; I have not been able to positively identify the model number, but I think it is the reversing version of motor No 1.
The lower lever is the stop/start control, and the upper lever gives forward or reverse. It still works perfectly. There is a simple centrifugal governor which gives roughly constant speed despite varying torque from the spring; a single little weight moves outwards until it rubs on the inside of a metal cup.
This motor is quite an impressive bit of engineering, but I have to say it was never used after I got my E15R electric motor.

Left: Inside the big Meccano motor
A: Output shaft
B: Reversing mechanism
C: Governor
The stop/start lever at the bottom works by pressing on a disc on the governor shaft.

Left: The small Meccano motor
My first motor! This little item was called the "Meccano Magic Motor". It was not exactly powerful.
Unfortunately there seems to be something wrong with the spring or winding system on my example.

For more on Meccano clockwork motors see here:
www.dalefield.com
http://members.shaw.ca/

GRAMOPHONE CLOCKWORK MOTORS
One of the last places that clockwork motors held out was in driving gramophone turntables. This was convenient for picnics etc where electric power was not available. Garrard were the leading manufacturers of these motors.
Garrard and Company were originally jewellers, but in 1914 were asked to manufacture precision range finders for the British artillery. In 1918 a Mr H V Slade, who became General Manager, saw a need for quality spring wound motors for the fast developing gramophone manufacturing industry. The first model, The Garrard No 1 Spring Wound Gramophone Motor was produced and sales quickly followed. Development of the spring motor continued, and due to its manufacturing quality, silent running, and price, it was used by the major gramophone companies, notably Columbia, Decca, and HMV. (His Masters Voice), It was also used by lesser-known companies such as Lugton, Selecta, Coppock, Itonia and Thompson, and Diamond and Butcher. Garrard's policy was that the top model of every range should be the best obtainable on the market. The "Super" Gramophone motor was the first of these flagship products; it has been claime to be the best spring motor ever produced.
In 1926 Garrard began the development of electrical motors for gramophones,

Left: The Garrard No 21 clockwork motor
The internals of this motor are not very visible, but the general arrangement seems to follow that of the double-spring motor 10B below.
The top plate carries three fixing screws. The taller spindle is for the record hole, and the shorter the speed control. The winding spindle protrudes out to the right; it looks as if it winds the spring via a wormwheel visible through the top plate.
There was also a No 20 clockwork motor which looked almost identical and had exactly the same specs. The point of this is currently obscure.
From Garrard advertising leaflet, date unknown.

Left: The Garrard No 10B clockwork motor
The internals are more visible here. There is an intermediate shaft at bottom left, driven from the spring by straight-cut gears. The drive from this to the turntable spindle is by helical gears, probably to minimise both mechanical noise, and vibrations that could reach the pick-up. It appears that there are two spring cases on top of each other; the motor is considerably deeper than the single-spring Model 21 above.
The winding spindle now has a very obvious ratchet and pawl, and it looks as though here it winds the spring through a helical gear.
There is a fly-ball governor that appears to be driven from the turntable spindle by a backwards wheel and worm combination. As the speed increases the weights fly outwards and pull the flat disc towards a brake positioned by the speed-control lever.
From Garrard advertising leaflet, date unknown.

The Garrard leaflet includes a list of replacement springs- clearly spring breakage was not uncommon. It appears that replacement springs can stll be had from this company.