Thanks all. The winding is done manually by turning the large knob at the bottom right of the clock – see the second photo above. Basically, it’s just two or three winds around a barrel with a ratchet, and that provides enough friction to hold the main weight against the jockey weight. However, to avoid the line overlapping on the barrel, each wind goes into its own groove on the barrel and then up to a pulley (again with the line going into a groove), and back down to the next groove in the barrel, and so on for up to three complete winds This works well. I have to rewind the line every three/four days given the fall I have. I had thought about splicing the line, but decided to see where I got to with other knots first. The only sticking point is when the knot reaches the main arbour, but I can ease it round manually. I could do what I’ve done for the rewind mechanism and put another groove on the main arbour with a loop back to the bearing on the left and then operate the clock with two winds around the arbour, but I’ll leave that until I next dismantle the clock. The line is a 10kg braided fishing line – nothing special. Once I’d balanced the weights for the line and arbour groove, I’ve not had issues with slippage (yet). The clock is currently running at about +2s a day. I’ve added a small tray to the pendulum and am currently adding/removing fishing weights to improve the rate as best I can.
Stephen