Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, the dozens of antique clocks in Peter Rioux’s Winterport shop tick and chime the time away. The endless cacophony is enough to drive a person ...

The familiar tick-tock of wall clocks originates from the escapement mechanism, which controls gear movement in precise steps. While our brains perceive two distinct sounds, clocks actually produce ...

The tick-tick sound comes from the movement of gears and parts inside the clock. In mechanical clocks, a part called the escapement mechanism controls this sound.