Howard Miller & Ridgeway Clock Service

Howard Miller began as a clockmaker, taught by his father, in the Black Forest region of Germany. When he founded his company he started out manufacturing chiming wall and mantel clocks. Later the company turned to manufacturing grandfather clocks.

Howard Miller is in Michigan and also owns Ridgeway and offers hundreds of items ranging from home furnishings, wall and mantel clocks, and grandfather clocks. Their prices range from $5 to $15,000.

I have serviced many Howard Miller and Ridgeway grandfather clocks. Depending on the movement in the clock, they can be overhuled or need replacement when they stop running.  Your mechanical clock should be oiled every two years and thoroughly cleaned every five to ten years. If you move I also offer set up service.

Prague's 600 Year Old Astronomical Clock

The Prague clock had its 600th anniversay in 2010. Prague's Astronomical Clock has windows at the top showing the apostles. It also has an Astronomical Dial, which is the oldest part, and the Calendar Dial underneath with various sculptures around.

 There is a presentation of statues of the Apostles at the doorways above the clock, with all twelve presented every hour. There are four figures flanking the clock that are set in motion at the hour, these represent four things that were despised at the time of the clock's making. There is Vanity, represented by a figure admiring himself in a mirror. Next, the miser holding a bag of gold represents greed. Across the clock stands Death, a skeleton that strikes the time upon the hour. Finally, the Turk tells pleasure and entertainment.. The other statues, that don´t move, are an Astronomer, a Chronicler, a Philosopher and an Angel. When the apostles finish their journey, the golden cockerel at the top crows and quivers its wings, the bell rings and the clock chimes the hour.

The Astronomical Dial shows the medieval perception of the Universe with the Earth as the center. The blue part of the dial represents the sky above the horizon, the brown part the sky below it. There are Latin words rpresenting east and west written above the horizon, and dawn and twilight below. There is a Zodiac ring. The two clock hands have the signs of the Sun and the Moon.
There are three circles on the dial, showing different times: the outer circle with Schwabacher numerals shows the Old Czech Time, the circle with Roman numbers shows the Central European Time and the inner circle with Arabic numerals shows the “Babylonian Time”. The length of an hour differs there according to the season – it is longer in the summer, shorter in the winter. The Prague Astronomical Clock is the only one in the world able to measure it.






The newest part of the clock is the Calendar Dial. There is the Prague Old Town symbol in the centre. The rotary outer circle describes every single day of the year, and the current date is indicated at the top. There are also medallions with zodiac signs and with pictures depicting every month.

Prague's clock is a popular tourist attraction, so if you find your way there, you should visit it at the Old Town City Hall.

How did Big Ben get its name?

Big Ben is probably the best known clock in the world. The clock itself was started in May 1859 and the striking of the hours followed in July and the quarterly chiming in September.

Westminster had a clock before Big Ben. The old Westminster clock was only a short distance from the present clock tower. First reference to that clock was in 1286 and believed to run for approxiamently 300 years.

Big Ben's chiming plays the Cambridge quarters on four bells and is now known as the "Westminster chime". Big Ben is actually the name for the hour bell that was installed in the tower. During a debate in Parliament, Sir Benjamin Hall, a very robust gentleman, was making a long speech about naming the bell and someone called out  "Call it Big Ben and have done with it!"

There were two Big Ben bells. The first bell was cast in 1856 but was cracked beyond repair after being struck by its hammer during testing. A new bell was cast in 1858. It first chimed in July 1859 and in September it too cracked . The bell was taken out of service for 3 years. During that time the hour strike was played on one of the four quarter bells. The second bell was repaired by chipping out part of the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with an odd twang ever since and is still in use today complete with the crack. At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until 1881 when "Great Paul", a 16¾ ton bell was hung in St Paul's Cathedral.

The clock and tower have become a symbol for the United Kingdom and London and has become famous all over the world.

A clock that winds a watch?

In the 1800's Abraham-Louis Breguet a famous horologist designed a clock that set the owner's pocket watch to time at night. He called it a pendules sympathiques.

In the top of the clock is a holder for a special pocket watch that was worn during the day. Once the watch was placed in the holder, at least an hour later, it would be set exactly to the time with the clock. His first models set the minute hand of the watch on the hour. This idea was used later in the first public time services, which used an electric current to centralize the minute hands of clocks in public places. In later versions of Breguet's pendules sympathiques also wound the watch and calculated how much it had lost or gained and altered the regulator accordingly to adjust it. Breguet's invention showed the primary principal of automation. This was ingenious for this period of time. When Breguet, a pioneer in design, developed new inventions it paved the way for others to expand on them with better and more advanced devices.

In 1814 the Prince Regent of England bought one, which is now in the Royal Collection.

Stonehenge as a clock?

Ever thought of Stonehenge as a clock? Well, archaeologists and astronomers think its a time service from the Stone Age. Stonehenge represented the passage of time. Studying the placement of the stones it was found they were indicators of the different positions of the sun and moon to the earth.


Three successive Stonehenges have been identified on the same site. All have significant astronomical alignments. The odds against the stones of the Stonehenges having been erected at random are ten million to one.


Stonehenge was set up with two stones as an entrance and a third as the heel stone. Stonehenge is orientated so that the setting of the sun at the winter solstice (shortest day) is seen through the great central trilithon and in the opposite direction, the sun rises over the heel stone at the summer solstice (longest day).

Scientists have learned so much more about the alignment of the stones using a computer. But it is beyond comprehension that something so complex and precise could be erected in the Stone Age.

Cuckoo Clocks

Cuckoo clocks delight kids of all ages. Most people acquired them in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. A lot of soldiers brought the clocks back from Europe after WWII.

Most people think the clocks are "Swiss" but they are from Germany. The cuckoo clock case style was meant to mimic the typical railway houses that stood at each German railway stop.  The "Railway House" cuckoo clock was made to look like typical Black Forest structure with its pointed roof and square shape. The cuckoo bird would be hidden behind a trap door at the top, only to peek out at the top of the hour.

There are 1 day clocks and 8 day clocks. That means that it takes one day or eight days for the weight to fall from the bottom of the clock to the floor and then the weight would have to be pulled back to the top again to run the clock.  A basic cuckoo clock will have two weights and will just have a cuckoo bird that comes out. The cuckoo clock with three weights will play a musical tune in addition to the cuckoo and could have dancing people and other things going on.

Cuckoo clocks come in all shapes and sizes and can be basic or very elaborate. The antique ones will have brass movements in them but the new ones could be run by battery.

I repair cuckoo clocks and I have an antique Hunter's Cuckoo Clock for sale at Midtown Jewelers in Ansley Mall in Atlanta.

Connecticut-Birthplace of American Clockmaking

Bristol and Plymouth Connecticut was the center of clockmaking in the 1800's. Eli Terry, Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley started in Plymouth and expanded to neighboring Bristol. Bristol's attraction was their river and the town was already using water power to run their mills. The clockmakers took advantage of the water power and used it to run their factories.  

Ives and Jerome Brothers, Welch, Hubbell, Brown, Atkins, Boardman, Brewster, Sessions and Ingraham opened shops in Bristol.  Bristol reportedly had about 280 firms that were part of the clock industry.
  
In the beginning clocks were made one at a time by a local clockmaker. This made the early clocks very expensive. Eli Terry ended up producing 4,000 clock movements in 3 years. He used local water power to run machinery and carpenters, Silas Hoadley and Seth Thomas to produce wooden clock parts and Terry came up with interchangeable parts which lead to clocks being mass produced.

Bristol established the Bristol Clock Museum in 1954, now called American Clock and Watch Museum. If you ever get up that way you should stop in to see a part of our history. I have never been there but would love to visit someday.