Cuckoo clock

The cuckoo clock is made traditionally, especially in the Black Forest. She has gained worldwide notoriety. Often there is a clock whose pendulum movement is equipped with a chain and percussion. The basic shape of the housing is from the mid- 19th century, mostly modeled after a signalman's house with a pitched roof and decorated with more or less elaborately carved wooden ornaments. The actual eponymous feature of the cuckoo clock, however, in the percussion. As time acoustic signal used is a mechanical cuckoo that is movably mounted in the housing behind a door similar flap over the dial, and is usually swung for every full hour out. In addition to sound one or more cuckoos on the hour depending on the number of hours ( full hours are counted ), usually along with a gong.

The " cuckoo " is produced traditionally by a pair of different levels of organ pipes inside the clock. However, some patents come from with only one flute. Depending on the model, the mechanical cuckoo - traditionally carved from wood and painted, now often made ​​of plastic - suitable moved to the cuckoo call or opens the beak. In addition other movable decorative elements may be attached to the outside of the clock, which is (usually only on the hour ) move along ( dancers, other birds). Today, in addition to the traditional mechanical cuckoo clocks including electro - mechanical models are offered with a quartz movement, electronically produced cuckoo, as well as chain and pendant dummies.

Operation

Today, the movement of a cuckoo clock is usually similar to a conventional shock movement, but has in addition the so-called " perch ", a swivel device that moves the " cuckoo " at trigger an impact in the direction of the flap. The valve will be opened by a wire bracket, which is fixed to the foot of the bird. At the end of the firing process, the perch is again swung in the opposite direction and thus the flap closed.

The triggering of the Kuckucksrufs by two fundamentally different principles. Until the twentieth century, the percussion was usually controlled by a locking plate. In this historical operation of the cuckoo clock is not discussed here, but only to today's conventional mesh game of step gear and release the lever. While the weight permanently moved to the movement - chain down, the impact tripping is blocked. With the hour hand one step gear is coupled with twelve stages. Is the minute hand in "Twelve - clock position" dissolves for a brief moment, a lock and a vertical toothed trigger lever falls on the stepped gear, so depending on the time at different depths. To Twelve Clock stage is the smallest and the shutter falls deepest. The blockage is released and the impact chain is set in motion and drives a cam which takes over the " operation" of the impact mechanism. In this case, a time delay raised two complained with small weights or wood blocks bellows via a wire rod and released. Each bellows pumps air into a small pipe, whereby the Kuckuckston arises ( first the high tone, the deeper ). The impression of a Kuckucksrufs comes about only if the triggering of the pipe is the correct distance from each other. The cam triggers after the second whistle nor the impact on a gong (gong) and can also move other decorative elements such as externally mounted birds, dancers etc..

For each "blow" the vertically serrated trigger lever is lifted by a cam coupled to the rotating cam by one tooth and locked by the lock that holds the trigger lever outside the strike operation above, in each tooth. Twelve clock the cam member can thus turn twelve times, until the trigger lever has arrived back at his starting point and the percussion is again blocked.

For very complex animated outdoor decorations, another percussion will be in use or there is another " door " for the quail that beats in quarter or half hour. Such watches have three Chain-driven.

Depending on the design cuckoo clocks need to be raised to 8 days new every 24 hours today. To wind must be pulled up as with other Kettenzugwerken lowered the weights by hand again. That the Kettenzuguhrwerke usually the lower maturity than spring movements, thereby partially compensated by the running reserve at any time is directly visible at the position of the weights and a damage to the movement caused by too much pulling ( " coating " ) is not possible. Some models are equipped as other shock watches a silencing lever, which allows for example to turn off the cuckoo call at night.

The first cuckoo clocks

The origins of the cuckoo clock are in the dark.

1629 mentioned the Augsburg patrician Philip Hainhofer on a trip to Dresden for the first time a cuckoo clock. It belonged to Prince Elector August of Saxony.

1650 Athanasius Kircher described in the widely used manual for music Musurgia Universalis (1650), a mechanical organ with different character slots, including a mechanical cuckoo figure. This cuckoo automatically opens its beak and moves wings and tail tip. At the same time the cuckoo, created by two organ pipes that are tuned to a minor or major third sounds.

1669 suggested Domenico Martinelli ago in his book Horologi Elementari to use the cuckoo to indicate the hours. From that date, the mechanism for a cuckoo clock was known.

The first Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks

Who designed the first Black Forest cuckoo clocks, is controversial. Already the first two historians of the Black Forest horology contradict each other on this issue. Markus Fidelis Jäck claimed in 1810 that Franz Anton Ketterer had made ​​of beautiful forest at the beginning of 1730 - years as the first cuckoo clocks. Franz Steyr, however, reported in his History of Black Forest horology (1796 ) that Michael Dilger in Neukirch and Matthew Hummel began in 1742 to build cuckoo clocks. Wolfgang Altendorff writes the first Black Forest cuckoo clock, however, Franz Anton Ketterer's father Francis Ketterer (* 1676, † July 2, 1753 in Schoenwald ) to. Other early cuckoo clock makers include the two brothers Andreas and Christian Herr, born in 1812 and 1814, which operated in a small farmhouse near Triberg in the Black Forest the production of cuckoo clocks.

In the 19th century the cuckoo was just in lac watches and clocks in frame before the Bahnhäusleuhr displaced all other forms of the cuckoo clock within a few years from the market.

The Station House - clock

In September 1850 called Robert Gerwig, director of the Grand Ducal Baden watchmaking school in Furtwangen, is holding a competition for a modern watch design.

The most consequential was designed by Friedrich Eisenlohr, who was responsible architect for most buildings along the Baden State Railway. Eisenlohr provided the facade of a signalman's cottage with a dial. The archetype of the still popular as a souvenir cuckoo clock was born.

By 1860, the Bahnhäusleuhr removed significantly from the originally rather strict graphical form. Johann Baptist Beha 1862 offered from Eisenbach for the first time richly decorated with carved Cuckoo leg pointers and weights in the form of pine cones on.

Since that time, three-dimensional Bahnhäusleuhr with lush plant and animal carvings is a perennial favorite as a souvenir. Abroad, the cuckoo clock is not only a symbol of the Black Forest, but for the whole of Germany, because of the cultural similarities and the dissemination of watches for Switzerland and Austria.

Importance in popular culture

The cuckoo clock is a prop used in a number of comics and animated cartoons in which the cuckoo almost always - is attached to a scissor and can pop out a piece from the clock - in contrast to the standard cuckoo clocks.

Both in the art (eg Stefan Strumbel ) and the mode (eg Hermès ) and in the watchmaking working on modern versions of the cuckoo clock. It attempts to combine traditional ingredients as the original Black Forest clockwork with appropriately modified exterior.

In Fritz Benschers very popular game show tick-tack - quiz, which was shown at 1958-1967 in the ARD, was the losing candidate as a consolation prize, a cuckoo clock.