what grinds a flip clock's gears

[stmzu56]

I was wondering what would happen if someone were to mistakenly turn the time set wheel on a clock forcefully in the wrong direction. What kind of damage would result? I imagine gears would strip, but which gears- would it be the gears that the move the tiles and/or gears in the motorbox?
A clock I was thinking about buying on ebay allegedly had this happen to it, so I decided against getting it since I didn't know what I would be getting into.

[Mackey]

It most likely would not hurt the motor. The motor gears are able to move backward but the gearing would likely not allow the clock to move the gears.
as to what actually happens to the clock mechanism ..... it’s not good and would likely require a new mechanism.

[davidm]

Someone had a red hot go at destroying a Copal RP-160 I bought (needing repairs) recently.

Maybe they tried to wind it the wrong way, I'll never know, but it munted the hours drum where it couples with the alarm time set drum...



Fortunately the broken bits were still there, about as out of shape as me on a bad morning, but still able to be superglued back where they belong.

This is it after repair..



It's running fine now, it was just the mechanism, the hours drum and the spring steel release claw between the two drums that were damaged.

[stmzu56]

davidm that's interesting, thanks for the pictures. Good work fixing that mechanism. This clocks tiles didn't look jumbled, so maybe the seller was only making a guess.