Building Bernard Tekippe’s Precision Regulator

[Chris Raynerd 2Participant @chrisraynerd2]

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the late Bernard Tekippe, but in the 1990s he designed a lovely high precision regulator with a fairly simple design! He dispensed of the need of the pallet arbor and crutch by mounting the pallets directly on the pendulum. He made a number of these clocks which have shown to keep higher accuracy than other regulators, keeping accuracy of 0.008 sec/day – comparable to other regulators running in a vacuum chamber.

Despite this amazing accuracy and in my opinion, lovely looking design, there is very little info online!

I’m no expert, I just like attempting to build clocks! There is a great thread over on the NAWCC and I’ve been in contact with Steve on there who is building this clock and who has been super helpful and provided me with lots of drawings and information from his work so far. He has given me permission to use some of his CAD models in my videos – once again, I only do them for fun because I enjoy making them! I’m no expert in any of this.

This is definitely a tribute / hommage to Bernard’s fantastic design – if I can get a working clock keeping good time, I’ll be delighted. If I can get it keeping accurate time then that’s a bonus and something to aspire to.

I hope there is some interest in this clock as it seems a great design with such little available information and discussion!

Here is my first video in my efforts in building this clock:

Cheers, Chris

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

A great tribute to a very interesting design, Chris

… Keep it coming !

MichaelG.

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

I’ll second that, always good to see an interesting clock design being made.

Andy.

[Chris Raynerd 2Participant @chrisraynerd2]

Thanks guys, I’m looking forward to the rest of the build. Onto the pendulum support this afternoon.

[Chris Raynerd 2Participant @chrisraynerd2]

I’ve just continued making the pendulum support bracket in the video below.

I’m on to the pendulum next. Does anyone know a UK supplier of Invar that isn’t going to totally destroy my wallet?

Also, just curious if anyone has any experience with bearings and possibly ceramic bearings in clocks? Quite a few people seem to be using them now and I’m considering that as an option, certainly on the great wheel arbor and possibly the escape wheel arbor.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Have you considered using carbon fibre pultruded tube? Far cheaper than invar and may have lower tempco. There have been some articles about using small ball bearings in clocks in HJ.

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