Clock Repair for Cape Cod
Any clock that has cable , chains or rope to drive the movement ends up here to be tested . Could be Howard Miller , pearl , Colonial , Herchedee , Sligh , Seth Thomas and many more . Antique grandfather clocks all get tested on the rack . Wall clocks , out of their case , get tested here too .
Rust . The enemy.
Fuzz , This grandfather clock been been sitting not running for years .
old brass cables need to be replaced
More rust . This is the escape wheel . All of the gears looked like this one .
After Assembly. Nice new cables . These are rated for 120 lbs.
Much better.
On the test rack and running again .
These are old clocks so the are well worth fixing . On the bigger of the two the carving is really something to see in person . A lot of the time with newer cuckoo clocks the repair goes over the value of the time piece . I carved the tail on the top left bird . Looked OK so I glued it on . Not my usual work that's for sure .
A balance wheel out of a Chelsea ship's strike clock . I'm just inspecting this after it was cleaned . Most people see one of these in a pocket watch . It's the piece flipping back and forth . Ships wheel and ships portal clocks have this type of movement because there is no room for a pendulum , plus if it's in a boat the pendulum would not work due to the rocking motion of the boat . A few other names for ships strike clocks include Seth Thomas and Salem .
Typical modern clock in for a new movement
Here is a modern clock that needed a new movement. Sometimes Howard Miller clock company , slighe clocks , Colonial clock company and several othes use the same movements . A clock gets a new movement when the old one is worn out from time . Just think how amazing it is when it ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 30 years or more. If taken care of the new one will last like the old one. A clock should be serviced every two years or so . I've always liked the moon dial with the moon and stars on it like this one .
This case had to be disassembled. Look at the piece next to the figurine - the plates have shiny spots where her feet attach to the base. The plates are shiny because the clock was dropped. The force bent the plate where her feet attach. I reshaped the bottom of the plate to make it flat again. Now she sits snug to the base and not loose and wobbly. This clock is from New Hampshire .
These are are common and much loved time pieces. Two key holes means it strikes the hours and once on the half hours. I overhauled this one.
Lion head handles.
Mahogany case clock. My customer made this clock from a kit many years ago. It just needed to be oiled. A real Eli terry would be a treasure. Although .... this one is too.
Here we can see that the pivot has worn through an old bushing and into the clock plate. A pivot is the part of a clock gear that passes through the front or back plate. A new bushing did the trick. If you are wondering how I made up for the wear in the plate I simply put the right size bushing in a larger bushing. Then I used the correct cutter for the bigger bushing. Tapped bigger bushing in new larger hole.
Here is a rack and snail movement. The snail determines how many teeth the rack is allowed to count. Snail is in the center, behind the hands. Rack is the silver piece behind the hour hand.
You never know what's under the hood, in my line of work. Chelsea clocks are still made in Chelsea MA.
Bent teeth.
I carefully bent teeth back and trued up the gear in a lathe, good as new!
This gear has two pins, I replaced one of them.
This tooth needed to be replaced.
Brass does look good polished.
Here you can see the escape wheel came loose. I re-rivited it back on. After cleaning and oiling it's running again.
Creep is when the power of a wound up main spring works on the weakest point of the spring for years. This clock sat for 40 years before it came to me. That spring is housed in what is called the main spring barrel.
Bruce Reid | Cape and Island Time | Chatham, Massachusetts | 508.945.9569