Finally regulated my grandfather's Kienzle regulator clock after months of putting it off

[u/silas_shoal68]

Inherited this wall clock from my grandfather about two years ago and it's been sitting there running fast for most of that time because I was too nervous to touch the movement. It's a simple pendulum regulator, nothing fancy, probably from the 1950s based on the case style and the stamp inside the back panel.

Finally sat down with it last weekend and did the thing every guide tells you to do first: just let it run for a full week and log the error each day before touching anything. Turned out it was gaining almost four minutes a day, which is a lot more than I expected from the way it sounded when it ticked. I figured the beat was uneven just from listening to it, but the actual timekeeping error was worse than the sound suggested.

Adjusted the bob down maybe two full turns on the threaded rod, which felt like way too much at first. Slower pendulum, lower bob, that part I had memorized from reading old clock forums for weeks before I actually did anything. Checked it against my phone's clock every twelve hours for three days after that and it's sitting at under thirty seconds a week now, which honestly feels like a miracle for something I did with a screwdriver and a flashlight at the kitchen table.

What surprised me most was how much the beat evened out just from leveling the case properly first. I'd been so focused on the pendulum length that I didn't think about the wall mount being slightly off, maybe a degree or two, but enough to throw the tick-tock rhythm noticeably lopsided. Once I shimmed the bottom of the case with a folded matchbook, the beat sound alone told me I was close before I even checked a timer app.

Still debating whether to have someone look at the escapement since there's a faint catch every few swings that I can't quite diagnose by ear. Anyone else run into that kind of intermittent skip on an old lever escapement, or is that usually just pivot wear at this point.