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Geoff Hiscox
Thank you for your comments re the four-hand tide clock.  They give me chance to procrastinate with a reply before getting down to replying about tides.  The four-hand tide clock was fairly easy to work with.  It’s just a standard 24hr quartz movement with a gearbox screwed to the front.  The gearbox was just 1950s English Secondary Technical School Mechanics lessons stuff.  The hardest bit was counting the teeth on the hours wheel.  In the end I had to white dot a tooth and count round the grooves with the point of a 0.5mm lead clutch pencil.  I lost count a couple of times and skidded off a couple of times, but I got there in the end.  The other two wheels were easier.  I white dotted them too and ran them round the hours wheel to find the overlap. 

The hardest bit is going to be investigating the one-hand 24hr 25m quartz mechanism.  I’ve now donated both a spare 24hr and a spare 24hr 25m quartz mechanism to wreck for science.  First job will be to look for a frequency printed on the side of the crystals.  If they’re different, job done.  I there’s no frequency on the side of the crystal, I’m going to desolder them and swap them over.  If the outputs change, it’ll be the crystals wot done it.  If the outputs don’t change, I’ve got to look for different capacitors, if any, or if all else fails, I’ve got seriously study the connected-up pins of the chip.  If I manage to ruin a crystal, I’m going to carefully open the can to see what’s inside, because I find it hard believe Professor Google when he says I’ll find a wafer of crystal cut like a tiny tuning fork.  I’ll let you know how I get on.  DaveP