Model of "Big Ben", Edward Dent, London, England. 1853. Installed in tower in 1858 and bells installed in 1859.

A highly detailed model of the famous clock at Westminster, England's seat of government. Model is a 1:6 scale replica and is fully functional complete in a case that mimics one of the walls in the actual clock room.  It was made in the Netherlands in 1973 by Boven Kasi. He had made several visits to the clock to take photos and measurements. This at a time when access to the clock was far easier than it is today due to security concerns. Movement equipped with Denison (double three legged gravity) escapement, one second pendulum (original is a two second). Three train, quarter chiming using count-wheel strike. Cam work provides for automatic winding and silencing at night.

Flatbed frame (machined steel - original is cast iron). Harrison maintaining power. Model dimensions - clock bed only 32"w x 7.5"h x 6.25"d. Entire diorama (including fly fans) 38"h x 28"h x 13"d. Original clock is 16 feet wide! The doll gives a sense of the scale of this tower clock movement. I have seen it and it is overwhelming.

The model details the original right down to the individual frame bolts. It does, however, for the sake of esthetics use brass wheelwork where the original used cast iron and has a solid dial in front of the escapement to show the seconds. The pendulum is also not to scale since 1/6th of an 18 foot pendulum would only be 3 feet and unable to beat seconds. It is automatically electrically rewound as is the original.

Click on the picture to go to a page for more detail.

The following short video clip shows the overall movement striking, please excuse the poor video quality as this was taken in the late 1990's.