Grandfather Clock Repair, Moon Phase and Dial

Many of our customers ask us questions about their Grandfather Clocks Moon dial, how it works, what it does and how to read it. Hopefully we will answer all the questions about the moon dial in this posting. 

The first item one needs to know is the numbers on the dial represent the "DAYS OF THE  MOON" and not our calendar days.

When the moon is "new" or there is no moon, the dial will indicate a picture of a house, a ship or some theme the Grandfather Clock manufacturer had in mind as pictured above in this post.

As the moon in the sky progresses, so will the moon on your Grandfather Clock dial.  Every 24 hours the moon gear on your Grandfather Clock will advance one notch, which means the moon gear will advance slightly up the numbered scale, indicating the "day of the moon" or how old the moon is. The way to read the moon phase on your Grandfather clock, is to line the center of the picture (or painting) of the moon with the number on the scale.

​ The picture to the right indicates that the moon is 14 days old, one day from a full moon, which a full moon is 15 days old. 

Our website has an on-going moon calendar for our customers, if you click here, the link will take you to our home page for you to see the current phase of the moon. 

When clocks were first introduced to homes, the phase of the moon was extremely important to our ancestors. By knowing the phase of the moon, one would know the best time for traveling, as well as planting a garden and many other chores throughout the month.

The moon dial on a Grandfather clock also gave the manufacturers of the clocks to add a personal touch to their Grandfather Clocks. Many of the older Grandfather Clocks or English tall case clocks, as many people called them, had a painting on the dial along side of the moons (each dial has 2 moons to keep the calendar accurate). The paintings often indicated something personal to the artist, clock maker or the customer that was having the Grandfather clock made for their home. We have seen several older Grandfather clocks moon dial have a painting of the actual home that the Grandfather Clock manufacturer made for their customers. 

This was not done often, however several Grandfather Clock manufacturers would provide the artist for the customer and let them choose the painting of the moon dial. We serviced one English tall case clock that had 3 homescapes on the actual face and moon dial. The first home on the moon dial was the original homestead the Grandfather clock was made for.  The other 2 paintings of homes were paintings of the homes that the Grandfather Clock was passed down to as time went by.  

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