North Coast Imports, Inc.

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If your cuckoo clock doesn't sound quite the same as those heard on our YouTube movies , the first thing you'll want to do is to check the position of your gong. Before every cuckoo call, there is traditionally a gong that is struck by a mechanical hammer. This adds depth of sound to the cuckoo clock call. If your hammer is missing the gong, or if the hammer is too close to the gong, you might get a "sick" sounding cuckoo. This gong can be easily adjusted! In the picture above, you can see the back of a cuckoo clock. There is a hole at the center of the back side through which you can see some black wires. This is the gong and the hammer. Seen from the inside, you can see the gong... First, be sure that the packaging paper is removed from this spiral gong. Then, replace the back piece into it's slot. Check out our setup videos for more information on removing packaging and replacing the back piece. After the back piece is set in place, you should be able ...

Thanks to the creative people at ReadyMade Magazine for noticing our Classic Space cuckoo from our NEW /design line.

Our friend Bill Maier has recently started his own blog to document his impressive collection of rare, antique "Vienna" Regulator Timepieces. Here's a particularly stellar example from his collection: Gilded bronze skeletonized laterndluhr by Fertbauer, C. 1810. Overall height 67". Seconds beating, knife edge suspension riding on a gimbal. The gimbal is held by two L shaped brackets through the front plate of the movement, typical Fertbauer design, sweep seconds with sub dials of minutes, hours, and date. Stay tuned for more input from this great collection! [via ViennaRegulators.org ]

From ScienceDaily : The world's most precise clock - on which all time-keeping and navigation systems are based - might be made as small as a wristwatch with a new design proposed by an international team of physicists. A new class of atomic clocks of at least equivalent accuracy could be made much smaller and simpler by trapping aluminium, gallium, cesium or rubidium atoms in a lattice of laser light operated at a specific "magic" wavelength, according to a new theory put forward by physicists at the University of Nevada, in the US, and the University of New South Wales.

Cesium has been the element of choice, thus far, for the most accurate clocks. It is in use in our civilian time standard. But make way, Cesium: An experimental atomic clock based on ytterbium atoms is about four times more accurate than it was several years ago, giving it a precision comparable to that of the NIST-F1 cesium fountain clock, the nation's civilian time standard, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report in Physical Review Letters. This photo shows about 1 million ytterbium atoms illuminated by a blue laser in an experimental atomic clock that holds the atoms in a lattice made of intersecting laser beams. The photo was taken with a digital camera through the window of a vacuum chamber. NIST is studying the possible use of ytterbium atoms in next-generation atomic clocks based on optical frequencies, which could be more stable and accurate than today's best time standards, which are based on microwave frequencies. (Credit: Barb...