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Bacharach Tempscribe

Circular Chart Record

(circa 1950)

Designed to record temperature over either a 24 hr or 7day period (this one is 7 days) I thought, well this is actually a clock. So I placed a red paper arrow at the bottom of the chart and set the time to this marker. As the chart rotates the arrow points to the time of day for the day that it is (days of week are visible around the periphery of the chart paper). Each day is broken up into 4 x 6hour periods. The only problem was that the original spring driven clock movement stopped working and it would cost a small fortune to fix. I replaced that movement with a battery powered inexpensive 7 day quartz movement. Because the old movement ran counterclockwise and the new movement ran clockwise I couldn't use the original charts that came with the Tempscribe. So I borrowed an image I found and scaled it down until it fit. While the new clock movement has hands for days, hours, minutes and seconds, I am using only the second hand because its movement is in stark contrast to the imperceptible rotation of the chart (See video); I like irony. And, as far as I know, this is the first example of using a second hand as a battery level indicator.

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