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Thread: Picked up an antique clock tonight that I really like. Wish I knew more about it.

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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    Picked up an antique clock tonight that I really like. Wish I knew more about it.

    I was browsing through the online list of things for sale by local people that contains things such as cars, hookers etc, you all know where I am talking about. Stumbled across this clock that had been listed for quite some time and nobody bought it. I emailed the seller offered $30 they counter offered $40 and I took it. Immediately drove over and picked it up. I am in love. It only runs for a few minutes, but I plan on taking it in to be repaired (hope it doesn't cost a fortune) Looks like it is pretty old. If only I knew how old and what company made it. It is definitely not made in china. Once i get this old beauty up and running, I am going to ad a shelf to the wall in my ham radio/reloading room to put her on.

    There is something about old stuff. Made in a time when people cared about what they were selling. Made to last.













    Last edited by rci2950; 11-28-2012 at 06:58 PM.
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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    man you rock!
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    Guns Network Contributor 04/2013 El Laton Caliente's Avatar

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    Nice clock. I have a Seth Thomas that he signed himself...

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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by El Laton Caliente View Post
    Nice clock. I have a Seth Thomas that he signed himself...
    I bet its nice. Got any pictures?
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    **Team GunsNet SILVER 12/2014** skorpion's Avatar

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    Good find! You're right; there is something about old, well-made items, no matter what they are. Antiques were made in simpler times, yet they seem to hold up better than many modern goods designed and manufactured with the help of modern technology.
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    Senior Member Kadmos's Avatar

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    Neat piece. Waterbury goes back to a little before the Civil war if I remember right. Eventually they became U.S. Time, before turning into the much better well known name of Timex.

    Probably from 1890's-1910 or thereabouts. Might be on the earlier side, looks like a lot of hand work on the back, but machine work on the front.

    Surprised there isn't a name on the dial, it might be a replacement, it might be because it's an earlier piece.

    Not to knock it or anything, but those clocks can be a hard sell, not that you would necessarily want to, but most people find them right at that period of too ornate for many people's taste and not ornate enough for others.

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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kadmos View Post
    Neat piece. Waterbury goes back to a little before the Civil war if I remember right. Eventually they became U.S. Time, before turning into the much better well known name of Timex.

    Probably from 1890's-1910 or thereabouts. Might be on the earlier side, looks like a lot of hand work on the back, but machine work on the front.

    Surprised there isn't a name on the dial, it might be a replacement, it might be because it's an earlier piece.

    Not to knock it or anything, but those clocks can be a hard sell, not that you would necessarily want to, but most people find them right at that period of too ornate for many people's taste and not ornate enough for others.
    As for the dial lacking a name. It notice it has been repainted and done well. the yellow marks seen in the picture actually were some kind of smutch and just came off by a light scrape of my thumbnail.

    Thanks for the info for sure. I want to learn as much about it as I can. Good thing it was a hard sell because i got it for mondo cheap and plan on using it. The style of the room it is going to be going into isn't really following a style. I don't plan on selling it. Especially after the work that is going to go into it. This is going to turn into one of those family heirlooms I would imagine...

    It will be spending at least the next few years safely on its own custom shelf in here.(my room of escape) Until my wife gets off the tick tock phobia, if and when that happens it will likely migrate to the main room which has a decor theme that would definitely fit.
    Last edited by rci2950; 11-28-2012 at 10:13 PM.
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    Site Admin & **Team Gunsnet Silver 12/2012** Richard Simmons's Avatar

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    Neat clock. IIRC one of our members, dfariswheel is a retired watchmaker. He might have some knowledge about clocks as well. Give him a holler.
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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Simmons View Post
    Neat clock. IIRC one of our members, dfariswheel is a retired watchmaker. He might have some knowledge about clocks as well. Give him a holler.

    HEY DFARISWHEEL!!!



    nah just kidding... I think I will actually do that. I was wondering how hard it would be to actually repair it myself. If i took my time and documented well with notes and pictures I might be able to make a useful project out of this. I would not want to make a mess of it but the possibility is there.
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    PRESENT:

    This is commonly known as a kitchen clock, since that's where they typically sat.
    Some had a wind up alarm that would raise the dead, and was a favorite of farmers.
    This one has the normal hour and half hour strike, which is a "CLANG" more then a nice chime.
    This clock has had a new paper dial applied.
    Some kitchen clocks had even fancier cases.

    The same movement was also used in less expensive mantel clocks, usually with a shorter pendulum to fit the lower mantel type cases. A prime feature of the mantel types was a black case with pillars on the front covered with printed paper that simulated marble, and with gold colored pot metal feet and fittings.

    The movement is a very simple design with thin brass plates and a lot of heavy wire and stamped parts.
    The wheels are brass with bare steel pinions and pivots (axles). Most all parts are either bare steel or unpolished brass.

    These often came in with pivots worn to a "bullhead" shape and often worn so far they just broke. There are no bushings as such, just stamped circular areas around the pivots to form an oil cup.

    Mainsprings often break, and if the case has started to rot, may even break through the side of the case when the mainsprings snap.

    Repairs are simple and straight forward due to the simple mechanism, usually limited to installing bushings in worn holes, possible re-pivoting badly worn pivots, replacing a broken mainspring, and a clean and oil.
    In the old days, clocks and watches were oiled with fish oil or sperm whale oil. Most of these were lubed with fish oil, which rots. The smell of years of old oil upon opening the case is a memory I could live without.

    Repair is simple, but you have to be set up to install bronze bushings, which takes an expensive bushing tool, and you need a jewelers lathe to drill and re-pivot a worn or broken pivot.
    The design is not complicated, but you do have to understand how it functions or getting the strike working on time, and the hands indicating properly can be tough. it's a simple design, but there are a lot of parts and various trips that all have to be positioned and adjusted correctly.

    It was common back then for people to put a can of kerosene (called coal oil back then) inside the case of a stopped clock. The oily kerosene fumes would lubricate a dirty movement and get it running again.
    Problems was, the dirty oil that stopped it to start with would form an abrasive paste that would just eat the pivots and plate holes up. What would have been a simple clean and oil turned into a major repair job, or a junked clock.
    A lot of these old clocks were turned in for scrap brass during WWII.

    These types of inexpensive clocks were made by a number of companies, and sold by Sears, Wards, hardware stores, country stores, farm and home stores, etc.

    You can still buy replica movements, case kits, door decals, case parts, some movement parts, and manufactures labels for the back.

    I repaired a GOOD many of these things.
    It was interesting to in the same day go from repairing a Rail Road pocket watch, an Accutron watch, one of these old clocks and a Colt Python.
    Last edited by dfariswheel; 11-29-2012 at 07:35 PM.

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    Senior Member Penguin's Avatar

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    Wow interisting stuff thanks for sharing.
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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    Thanks for the reply dfariswheel. Taking what you said into consideration, I think I will let the professionals do the job. After the holiday season is over I will take it into the clock repair shop to be done properly. Would you say after it was repaired would I get a good many years out of it or would it have to go back avery couple years for maintenance like a mechanical watch does? Also do you think it is worth spending a lot money on?

    Thanks again!
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    Team GunsNetwork PLATINUM 10/2012 rci2950's Avatar

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    well after researching more on my own I actually answered my own question. Oiling every three years and cleaning every 8. I can live with that. its making more sense now.
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    Beautiful clock!
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    Senior Member Oswald Bastable's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by dfariswheel View Post
    A lot of these old clocks were turned in for scrap brass during WWII.
    dfaris...had no idea you had such knowledge, or I would have asked about this before...I only quoted this sentence due to the clock I'm about to ask about...

    I have an older (likely WWII era) ship's clock...one of the few things I have to remember my grandfather by (he served in the Navy in WWII, a destroyer or battleship...wish I could ask my mom which...can't remember, but she's deceased). It's round, about 9 to 10 inches in diameter, solid brass for the casing, key wound with two winding points, one for the clock itself, one for the bells...and that is what it struck, the bells, not the hours.

    I've had it packed away for a number of years. As I recall, when I packed it, it kept time well when wound, but the striking of the ship's bells when wound needed attention...they didn't strike correctly compared to all those days I remember them going off in my grandfather's study as a boy.

    Do you know anything about such clocks, and am I likely to be able to find someone today who could service it...get it back into the condition I remember so well, when eight bells sounded on my grandfather's den wall?
    Last edited by Oswald Bastable; 11-30-2012 at 12:21 AM.
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    I never worked on a ship's clock, being inland.
    They're just a higher grade clock movement, and any good clock maker can repair it.
    Many of the ships clocks had jeweled bearings like watches, instead of bronze bearing like clocks so they were better grade.

    I'd ask around to find out who the local jewelers would trust. Like much else, there are too many jack legs working and they can ruin a fine clock.

    Of the fine clocks I worked on that I remember were:

    I remember a clock that according to the owner was taken out of a German King Tiger tank in 1945. It was a mostly steel movement in a steel case that fit in a mounting hole in the turret.
    Apparently, with brass a critical material, late in the war they used steel parts instead of brass. The clock was really nothing special, being a rather ordinary 8 day wind up movement.

    A memorable clock was a very old grandfather clock that came out of an old mansion in a big city.
    It was given to a Catholic seminary and after 30 years it stopped.
    The boss went to pick it up and found the case was almost 10 feet tall.
    The movement was about 2 feet square and the gears and plates were made of 1/2" brass.
    It was everything the boss could do to lift it and carry it into the shop.
    The dial was totally hand engraved with hand made and pinned-on letters and numbers.
    The weights and pendulum were filled with mercury.

    The last was a repair done for an old French family who's ancestors settled in the 1760's, They brought the clock with them.
    The base was an almost solid bronze oval about 2 1/2 feet across and about 10 inches tall.
    Cast on top was a large figure of a French Cavalier leaning up against a tree trunk writing in a book with a feathery quill pen.
    In the bronze base was a 8 inch diameter French clock.

    The figure on the top was covered by a hand blown, light bulb-thin bubble of oval glass.
    How in the world that bubble managed to stay unbroken over 200 years is a mystery.
    When we picked it up we absolutely refused to even TOUCH the glass bubble. They took it off and we put the base in a padded wood case to keep from breaking the bronze quill or any parts of the figure.
    It took two of us to carry it the bronze was so massive.
    When you're working with or moving something that irreplaceable, you sweat bullets.

    A funny one was every few years an old man would bring in an old wall clock. for service It used the same type of movement that the above kitchen clock used.
    This was old, battered and in bad shape, but I kept it going.
    The old owner would always tell me the story about how this was the clock that Jessy James was winding when Bob Howard shot him in the back.

    I never had the heart to tell the old guy that the movement was stamped with a patent date of 1900.
    Last edited by dfariswheel; 11-30-2012 at 08:32 PM.

  18. #18
    Senior Member Oswald Bastable's Avatar

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    Thanks d...appreciate the info.
    If we refuse to rule ourselves with reason, then we shall be ruled by our passions.

    He, Who Will Not Reason, Is a Bigot; He, Who Cannot, Is a Fool; and He, Who Dares Not, Is a Slave. -Sir William Drummond

    There are some things I will not abide within my sight!

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    Senior Member El Duce's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by Oswald Bastable View Post
    Thanks d...appreciate the info.
    Really great read D!

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    I dis-remembered:

    The French clock's base was almost solid marble, with bronze feet and trim, not solid bronze.
    The Cavalier on top was cast bronze.
    The clock in the base was a brass French 8 day movement.

    I imagined over 200 years of kids, clumsy people and just fate, but the hand blown oval bubble was original according to the family.

    Things like these were a joy to work on, but nerve-wracking due to the value and irreplaceablity.

    The ones I HATED with a blind passion were Coo Coo clocks. We were in business so we had to work on them.
    I hated them because they were cheesy junk. Even the "good ones" GI's brought back from Germany.
    Sort of like having to work on a Lorcin pistol.

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