In the workshop at the moment is a longcase mechanism with a problem with the strike. Basically it wouldn’t! I removed the hands and dial to expose the rack striking mechanism, and found that the lifting lever was not being raised high enough to start the strike. The warning was happening, but not the strike. Suspecting a bent lifting piece, I removed the lever, which promptly fell into two parts in my hands! The brass pivot piece of the lever was covered in solder so I decided to apply some heat to see what had been joined. Here’s the result, a set of bits!

The lifting piece had obviously suffered some sort of catastrophic failure many years ago and all the parts had been carefully soft soldered back together.  I think a new brass lifting piece and pivot is required!

Update

I spoke to the customer (who had just moved house) about the problem. The clock was now to be sited in her sitting room, and she was concerned that the sound of the striking would disturb everyone in the house. I told her that without the repair the clock would not strike, but would run perfectly well, so we decided to leave the parts with the clock and postpone any repair until the strike was wanted.