Seth Thomas Wall Clock

This Seth Thomas wall clock came to me because it stopped running. It is a large wall clock that is well made. It is time only and is run by a weight. It does have a second hand which goes through the dial and affixes on the escape wheel.

When I took the dial off, I discovered that the cable had come off the pulley and was caught.

I replaced the cable. When replacing the cable you should measure the diameter and length of the old one. Assuming the old cable is the correct one for the clock. I also put new bushings in the clock. This is a simple movement, in that it has only one "train" of wheels. But the design was well thought out. In the picture above and below you can see it has 4 posts at the bottom and top of the plate. The two slightly larger silver ends are actually what holds the movement to the case bracket. The two black screws hold the clock plates together. This is the first clock I have seen that mounts to the case in this way.  

It has a key that you put on the square shaft that turns the drum. This winds the cable around the drum pulling the weight up.  When pulling up any weights, you never want to put any slack in the cables or chains. I have the minute hand on the clock while testing it. Before I put the minute hand on, the wheel behind the hand would take about 24 hours and it would move forward on the hand shaft and wedge itself against the washer on the minute wheel and stop the clock. If they all do this I was not aware of it. This is the first clock for me. So to run the clock, it has to have the minute hand on it to hold the hour wheel in place.

In my opinion, Seth Thomas did a excellent job, in both the style of the case and the quality of the movement.

Hermle Barrel Mainsprings

I see many Hermle movements in clocks. I have quite a few in my discarded storage area. They are from Germany but are newer movements and not made to overhaul. If yours is worn out then a new movement is installed.

They do have one good feature regarding the mainsprings that power the clock. The mainsprings are contained in a "barrel". You can take the barrels out of the movement without disassembling the whole movement. This makes it easy if you have a broken spring and want to replace just the spring.

The first thing you want to do is power down the clock. This is the most important thing in clockwork, so you do not get hurt and neither is there any cause for damage to the clock. Having a let down key is handy but if you do not have one, you can use the clock key. You want to put the let down key on the winding arbor. Turn the arbor slightly toward the winding direction to release the click paw from the ratchet wheel. Press up on the other end of the paw with your thumb. Press enough that the paw is away from ratchet wheel so the wheel can turn and let the key in your hand turn slowly. Be careful not to let the key get away from you. Slowly let the spring unwind. There will be a lot of force against the key in your hand. Having a let down key will make it a lot easier to unwind because of the smooth handle. If you are using a key, the wings will get in the way. Which means you will only be able to let down a couple of teeth at a time. You will have to continually stop and start letting down the spring.  

After the power is totally off the spring you can start to remove the barrels. The winding arbors have a bracket with screw around them that is holding the click wheel in place. By taking the bracket and click wheel off, you are now able to pull the winding arbor straight out toward you. Take notice of the groove along the winding arbor. When you later install it, the groove will have a position inside the barrel. The springs in the same clock could have different strengths so be sure and check the numbers on the outside of the barrels. Now you can install new barrels and reverse the whole process.

            

Delft German Clock

Here is a clock I bought a few years back at an auction. I was going to school to learn to repair clocks up in Pennsylvania. They had a lot of auctions and I liked to attend them and buy clocks to practice on.

The clock's front is ceramic. Its from Germany and the movement is marked CH. Schlenker Sohne, Schwenningen, Germany. Of course when I bought it, it was missing the pendulum and the key. I was able to buy the items that fit the clock. The first things that get lost are the keys and the pendulum because they are not attached to the clock or can come off.

This is a time only movement and you can tell from the dial as it has one winding hole just below the hand shaft. This clock is powered by a spring. In the picture you can see the small spring wound up at the bottom. In this time "train" there are six wheels between the plates. Because this is a time train we number the wheels starting with a T. The first wheel with the spring is T1 or the main wheel(which generates power up through the train). Then comes T2 wheel which meshes with T1 by a latern pinion. T2 wheel meshes with T3's pinion. T3 is on the center shaft. When the hands are on they are on the center shaft with T3. T3 wheel meshes with T4's pinion. T4's wheel meshes with T5's pinion. T5's wheel meshes with the escape wheel's pinion. And the last wheel is T6 or the escape wheel. Above the escape wheel is the pallet. As the wheels go up the train they get smaller and each wheel has a different number of teeth. There are two wheels on the front of the clock outside of the plates and are the hour wheel and the minute wheel.

The pallet above the escape wheel rocks back and forth and lets one tooth "escape" each time. The escapement gets the power from the spring to do this. If there was no pallet and the spring was wound up the power would make the wheels whirl around until all the power was released. The escapement is set up to let the power out gradually, one tooth at a time on the escape wheel. This is where you get the "tick" "tock" sound. The pallet has a crutch attatched to it and from there is a suspension spring, pendulum leader and the pendulum.

This is a basic clock but they get more complicated with more functions to perform. If you are into finding out how clocks work, hope you enjoy.

The Town in Ohio Named After a Clock

There is an Ansonia, Ohio which was named for an Ansonia clock that hung on the wall in the post office.

Back in the 1800's there were two villages in Ohio that were called Dallas. This created a lot of problems for the postal service. So the postmaster of Dallas in Darke County was trying to come up with another name of the village. As he wound the clock in the post office he noticed "Ansonia" printed on the dial. He suggested Dallas be changed to Ansonia, ending the postmaster's problem. The clock still hangs on the wall.

Ansonia, Ohio's clock also had a bullet hole in it. The story goes that one day a dog wandered in the p.o. and fell asleep under a table. When the p.o closed, the dog was not noticed. Several hours later the postmaster returned and heard noises inside. The postmaster got armed help and upon opening the door, shouted "Don't move or I'll shoot". The dog started moving around and after 3 bullets were fired, they found one went through the face of the clock. The incident happened on April Fool's Day and the local newspaper ran a poem the next day entitled "He shot the clock when its hands was up!" The poem was published every April Fool's Day for many years after. http://www.ansoniaohio.us/

Clocks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I have been to New York City many times and love the city. I love the hustle bustle of the city and its true, "the city never sleeps". There is so much to see and do. I always get to a Broadway show and do a lot of walking. On all my trips I just never had enough time to see the museums. On my last visit a couple years ago I did finally make it to the Guggenheim Museum. The building appears to be artwork itself and is an architectural marvel to me. I saw works of art by Lautrec, Monet, Picasso and Chazan.

I have always wanted to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I came across some information that back in 1954(the year I was born) the museum opened a gallery devoted to Horology. It was the largest concentrated group of watches and clocks at that time for any major American Museum. Based on the museum's website it does not sound like they still have the collection in one central place. It appears the clocks are now placed throughout the museum.


This will be a must see on my next trip to New York City.
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/206322 

Clock Museum in Opelika, AL

I got the chance to visit the Old Timers & Chimers Clock Museum, LLC in Opelika, Alabama. Its just a short drive from Atlanta.

John Hendricks, propreiter and fellow clockmaker has it all. We made an appointment on a Saturday for a tour. John was a gracious host and made us feel right at home. He started telling us about the history of the house. It is from 1865 and is on the National Register as one of the only "Gingerbread" houses left in the country. He purchased the home in 2007 in disrepair and had pictures showing its condition when he bought it. It had been empty for many years and was in very rough shape and his family thought he was crazy for buying it. But John could see the potential and could imagine it restored back to its original glory.

As you come into the entrance way there are the original double doors made of pine and the wood grain is just beautiful in them. Inside it has a spiral staircase that goes up to the second floor. The staircase is supported by one pine log that is stronger than steel. There are rooms dedicated to different types of antique clocks. John has German clocks, American clocks, and English clocks. He has one grandfather clock he bought at auction that was once owned by Ronnie Milsap. John is more than happy to talk about the clocks and show you the inside workings. Part of the tour, you walk through a long room full of customer's clocks waiting to be repaired, (which used to be the kitchen in the house) to the repair shop. There you can see clocks in all stages of dismantling. You are also surrounded by clocks hanging on the walls being tested with their pendulums swinging. He has two clockmaker's benches filled with the tools needed to restore the clocks.

There was only two of us on the tour on Saturday and we spent about 3 and half hours there. I enjoyed it thoroughly and was able to talk '"shop" with John too.Where else can you go and get a historical house, antique clocks, repair shop and clockmaker. I was in heaven!

Floral Clocks

In 1970, when I was 16 years old my parents took me to Niagara Falls, Ontario. There we saw a large floral clock. This picture I took in 1970 got me to thinking about this clock and others. This clock's face is made up of plants and flowers and is changed by the Parks Department. The mechanism is kept up by Ontario Hydro who originally built the clock. The tower at the back of the clock houses the Westminster chimes that sound on every quarter. If the door to the tower is open, visitors can see the clock mechanism and see photos that show the face design going back to 1950.

I found that there are two floral clocks close to Atlanta. There is one in Birmingham, Alabama at the Botanical Gardens and one in Frankfort, Kentucky behind the state capital.

The oldest floral clock is believed to be in Edinburgh, Scotland from 1903 and is still in operation. The Edinburgh clock started out with only an hour hand but in 1904 an minute hand was added. In 1905 they also added a cuckoo sound which went off every 15 minutes. Until 1972 Edinburgh's floral clock was mechanically operated. It needed to be wound daily. Now it is run by electricity.

So if you ever get the chance to see one in person, I think you will be delighted.   

Wooden Clock Movements

Most clock movements are made of brass. But during 1800 and 1840 in the U.S. clock movements were made of wood. The plates were made of oak, the wheels of cherry and the arbors and pinions of laurel. At the time brass was scarce and very expensive and the wooden movements made the clocks affordable.  There is metal in the wooden movements where wearing would occur and on levers, springs, bells, gongs and escapement, among other things.

These movements are weight-driven and some have the escapement found in the front of the clock and some have the escapement between the plates. They can run 30 hours between winding or 8 days(in tall case clocks). They strike the hour and use a count wheel.

Cleaning of wooden movements involve brushing the wheels, arbors, and plates with a mixture of boiled linseed oil and turpentine.

A common problem with wooden movements is the breakage of teeth and pinions as the wood ages it dries out. These items can be repaired. When replacing wheel teeth you should use cherry wood. You want to cut out a piece in the wheel where the new tooth will go and glue in a new piece of wood and then using a jewelers coping saw cut the tooth out from the pattern you have made to match the other teeth.

Today the wooden clocks manufactured by the early clock makers number in the millions. Time and wear has reduced the numbers but they are another link to our past.    

A Globe Clock made in the 1880's?

A man by the name of Louis P. Juvet came up with the idea of a clockwork-driven globe and this was back in 1867. The clockwork within the globe, rotates the globe once in 24 hours. The movement is riding on an axis down the center and is wound by turning the tail feathers on the arrow. With one of Juvet's patents he included a clock face and hands placed at the north pole of the globe. Juvet also had hour markings on the stationary equator ring and with all this, one was able to determine the local time at any point on the globe. Juvet had his globes made to withstand heavy use as he envisioned them to be used in schools and libraries as educational tools. The globes also had lines showing ocean currents, telegraph cables and the sun's angle up or down from the equator to name a few things. The globe itself gave geographical details, towns and political boundaries in great detail but of a world during the 1800's. At that time much of the western U.S. were still territories and the rest of the world also looked different than it does today.
Unfortunately Juvet's plans for the globes went up in smoke when his plant burned in 1886. This makes them very valuable as their production was  limited. The picture I have included is of a floor model that sold recently for $13,225. Also made was a table top version which is more rare and it sold for $24,150. So if anyone out there has one it would be quite valuable. It would be a thrill for me to see one in person after reading about them, to me a very interesting part of our history. Too bad the production of them had to end so early. 

M. Schwalbach-Tower Clock Maker

Matthias Schwalbach from Milwaukee installed 55 tower clocks in the U.S. in his lifetime from 1875-1915. I think the tower clocks were his biggest achievements but he was also a dealer in accordions, clocks, sewing machine fixtures and clock escapements.

Most of the tower clocks Schwalbach built were installed in churches. He had 19 clocks around Milwaukee and 15 more in Wisconsin. He had tower clocks installed in 2 churches in the Chicago area, 1 in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Oregon. He had 2 church clocks in Kentucky and Michigan and 8 clocks in Minnesota. One of his clock's in Minnesota was replaced due to a church fire.

What was amazing that all were built in his small factory in Milwaukee. Schwalbach's clocks were excellent timekeepers and were free of mechanical trouble. I found that there is only one Schwalbach clock operating today as it was originally designed. It is at the Church of St Joseph in Minnesota. They decided to have it restored to its original condition and the restoration was done in 2008. The other clocks he built, most have been electrified and the original movements are only partially used or not at all.

 

M. Schwalbach was also a part of a team who invented the first typewriter. I also repaired typewriters from 1984 to 1987 until they were phased out. That is how I got interested in clock repair. I had repaired typewriters and loved it until computers put me out of  business. I began searching for another mechanical device that I could use my repairing skills and found a clock school on the internet.

Matthias Schwalbach was a very busy man with all he was doing and fathered 24 children and outlived 3 wives. He was a major contributor in our early American clock history. 

 

Simon Willard-U.S. Clockmaker

Simon Willard was a celebrated U.S. clockmaker. Simon Willard clocks were famous in America but were expensive for common people. Simon built most clocks by hand and they were very precise. In 1718 the Willards lived on a farm in North Grafton, MA which is outside of Boston.  The oldest of the boys learned horology and it is presumed that the other boys were also taught. That is how Simon got his start in clockmaking.

Simon Willard was commissioned to make a clock for the Old South Meeting House in Boston, the site of the planning for the Boston Tea Party. He built a carved and gilded gallery clock with a spread eagle on the top. The clock was delivered in 1805 and hung there until 1872 when it was moved to Old South Church in Boston's Back Bay.

                                                                       

For 50 years Simon Willard was responsible for maintenance of all clocks at Harvard College in Cambridge, MA. Simon also presented two clocks to Harvard.

Thomas Jefferson requested that Mr. Willard build a clock for the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. The clock was installed in 1827 but was destroyed by fire in 1895.

Simon Willard has one clock and one clock mechanism in the U.S. Capitol that are still operating. Mr. Willard patents were signed by many famous people at the time, namely John Hancock, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Levi Lincoln.

Simon Willard clocks are American masterpieces and have sold for $50,000-$250,000.

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.  

Black Forest of Germany

The Black Forest is a region in south-west Germany. It was know to be one the largest clock making areas in the world.  It started as local farmers were looking for some indoor work that could be done during the hard winter months. They took up woodworking and woodcarving. Someone had a wooden clock and from that they came up with the idea to start making clocks.

The early clocks had wooden wheels and  frames, the weight that powered it was a stone on a string. The clocks only ran for 12 hours. Later wood wheels were replaced by brass wheels.  A clock maker needed one week to make one simple clock. They progressed to two people making 10 such clocks in a week. As the years went on the business turned into a large enterprise for the area. They did not start out making cuckoo clocks even though that region is famous for them. They still make cuckoo clocks because the consumer is used to the west German quality and are not interested in cheap imitations.  

If you ever get a chance to visit the Black Forest region of Germany, here is a website that gives the history of their clock making. There you can tour clock museums, clock companies, workshops and studios of clock shield painters. http://www.deutscheuhrenstrasse.de/uhrimschwarzwalden.htm 

This is a place I would love to visit and see where it all started by farmers looking for something to do in the winter.

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight saving has caused controversy since it began and continues today. Many areas of the world do not use daylight saving time. DST's clock shifts have the obvious disadvantage of complexity.  People must remember to change their clocks. This can be time-consuming, particularly for mechanical clocks that cannot be moved backwards safely.

The history of standard time in the United States began November 18, 1883 when United States and Canadian railroads instituted standard time in time zones. Before then, time of day was a local matter, and most cities and towns used some form of  local solar time, maintained by some well-know clock (for example, on a church steeple or in a jeweler's window). The new standard time system was not immediately embraced by all. Use of standard time gradually increased because of its obvious practical advantages for communication and travel. Standard time in time zones was not established in U.S. law until the Act of March 19, 1918, sometimes called the Standard Time Act. The act also established daylight saving time, itself a contentious idea. Daylight saving time was repealed in 1919, but standard time in time zones remained in law. Daylight saving time became a local matter. It was re-established nationally early in WWII, and was continuously observed until the end of the war. After the war its use varied among states and localities.

Here on the east coast we observe DST so Atlantans turn your clocks back Sunday. On your mechanical clocks, stop the pendulum for at least an hour and then start it up again and set the hands to the correct time moving the hands forward only.