CLOCKS m a g a z i n e October 2014, £4.95/US$8.45/AU$10.50 www.clocksmagazine.com
CLOCKS = October 2014, £4.95/US$8.45/AU$10.50 www.clocksmagazine.com Established 1977 m a g a z i n e CLOCKSPARES We Are One Of The Country’s Largest Manufacturers Of Replacement Parts For Antique Clocks. Here In Our Dereham Workshops We Are Able To Offer A Wide Range Of Top Quality Spares And Services To Aid The Discerning Restorer. Clocks A superb range of spares for Longcase, Fusee, French, German & American clocks. We offer wheel & pinion cutting and hands sawn to pattern. A wide range of date & escape wheels always stocked along with cast iron false plates, lost wax castings, keys, springs, fluids, cast brass stick & sheet. SITUATION VACANT City Clocks is a well-established retail clock and watch shop in Ludlow with a busy repair service selling antique and 20th century timepieces. We are looking for an assistant to help with all aspects of our business, including processing orders from our very active website www.cityclocksonline.com. Applicants must be able to set up and adjust most clocks for display and for customers. The successful applicant should have clock repair experience, fluent spoken and written English, be presentable and instinctively neat and tidy. IT skills must include Word, Excel and database use together with email and internet search skills. Training would be available to a suitable candidate. Clock Keys? We make thousands! Check our discounts and save pounds on brass, steel and crank keys. Turret Clocks We stock glass fibre dials in two & three foot sizes, plus motion works, various mains movements, hands & fittings. Applicants must have a clean UK driving licence, valid EU work visa and be able to supply references. Applications together with a current CV or covering letter to jeff@cityclocks. com or by post to City Clocks, Quality Square, Ludlow, SY8 1AR Barometers We offer dials, hands & tubes for wheel & stick Barometers, Thermometers made to scale, plus level & hygrometer dials, bezels, set knobs, finials, etc. ATTENTION ALL ADVERTISERS We specialise in mail order & counter sales, with no minimum orders. We also pride ourselves in our fast, friendly service. Send £3.00 for our comprehensive catalogue of spares & services. Overseas customers welcome. CS CLOCKSPARES 12 Cedar Drive, Attleborough Norfolk NR17 2EX Tel: 01953 457198 email: [email protected] for wheel-cutting call: 01362 860545 Did you know that by booking a year’s advertising (12 issues) and paying for it in advance you only have to pay for 10 issues: you get two issues free! This represents a saving of almost 20 per cent. Call now for details: 0131 331 3200 Attention Electric Clock Collectors and Owners What if you could ... ● Accurately power your 50Hz clock in 60Hz countries; ● Power your 230V clock with 115V; ● ...and Vice versa Now you can! Who is Keeping Our Industry Alive and Ticking? YOU and AWCI Together, you and AWCI can help the industry grow and become more profitable. How Can AWCI Help Your Business? The American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWCI) is the U.S. trade association for the horology profession. BUSINESS LEADS FROM ONLINE REFERRAL DIRECTORY Through the www.awci.com Member Directory, we can connect consumers with your free business listing. Just one lead can pay for your annual membership! Ready To Join? For just $169 per year you’ll get these benefits and more! PLUS, your input will help shape the future of horology. Register online: www.awci.com. www.kensclockclinic.com/1930.html 216-410-1455 TRY US OUT FOR FREE! Want to see what AWCI TIMES is all about? Get a free issue of the Horological Times! TM HOROLOGICAL The Model 1930 Frequency-Precise Power Inverter Available exclusively from Ken's Clock Clinic AMERICAN WATCHMAKERSCLOCKMAKERS INSTITUTE ADVANCING THE ART, SCIENCE & BUSINESS OF HOROLOGY October 2013 Herman Mayer: Modern Mechanical Chronograph 7750 Edmond Capt: A Man of Record reprinted from WatchTime magazine Student paper: Magnetic Indexing of the Minute Counting Wheel Robert Little: Refurbishing and reinstallation of The Village of Glouster Clock, Part 2 Horological Times October 2013 1 Call 866-367-2924 HOROLOGICAL TIMES MAGAZINE Get 12 issues of the only U.S. monthly magazine serving the horology professional. VALUABLE NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES Join our online Technical Discussion, Spare Parts & Tools forums. Or, attend our annual convention or affiliate chapter meetings around the U.S. TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION AWCI sets the standards for the industry, conducts training to meet those standards, and provides industry-recognized certification. DISCOUNTED BUSINESS SERVICES Need health insurance? Discounts on select FedEx services? Office Depot savings? We’ve negotiated favorable member rates for numerous business services. 701 Enterprise Drive • Harrison, OH 45030-1696 PH: +1-513-367-9800 • Toll-Free: 866-FOR-AWCI www.awci.com 24/7 Secure On-Line Ordering Golden Hour Clock Motor For The UK & Europe For use with 220 volts, 50 cycles. CE and UL approved. Complete with 27 tooth brass gear. Ready to install. No. 23356 $44.00 FinE CLOCKs New Bond Street, London Wednesday 10 December EnquiriEs +44 (0) 20 7468 8371 [email protected] A FinE quArtEr rEpEAting EbOny tAbLE CLOCK Thomas Tompion and Edward Banger, 18th century, London, number 404 Sold recently for £194,500 Webster Style Mainspring Winder Removes and installs loop end & hole end mainsprings. Includes 2 hooks, arbor support, 9 mainspring sleeves, 1” to 2-1/4” and instructions. No. 15452 $175.00 Atmos & Reutter Style Suspension Spring Material Field Tested For Accuracy Proper replacement temperature compensating suspension spring is 9” long. Install your own fittings to complete. No. 22696 ............. Atmos $16.50 No. 23752 ............ Reutter $17.50 Timesavers Box 12700 • Scottsdale, AZ 85267 • USA Phone: (001) 480-483-3711 • Fax: (001) 480-483-6116 [email protected] • www.timesavers.com Our 172 page illustrated catalog #37 is free online or only $12 post paid internationally for a printed copy. bonhams.com/clocks Prices shown include buyer’s premium. Details can be found at bonhams.com Olde Time located on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders carry one of thelargestcollectionsof the largest collections of OldeTimelocatedontheNorfolk/Suffolkborderscarryoneof Antique Clocks and Barometers in the country. Many are featured on our website: AntiqueClocksandBarometersinthecountry.Manyarefeaturedonourwebsite: www.oldetimeantiqueclocks.com www.oldetimeantiqueclocks.com althoughwedohavemanymorepricesinstocksopleasedon’thesitatetogetintouch. Welookforwardtohearingfromyou. Keystone Bushing Tool UBM 87K KWM Set up $775.00 UBM 87B Bergeon Set up $775.00 Keystone Depthing Tool CDT-2 $450.00 Clock Supplies Keystone Tools 625 Poppy Way BROOMFIELD CO 80020 Tel: (303) 469 1220 Fax: (303) 439 0186 email: [email protected] http://www.milehiclocksupplies.com Victorian Double Fusee Skeleton clock, T.W.Howard, Bootle. C.1865 Victorian Walnut Library Clock. FRENCHEMPIREBISQUEPORCELAINCLOCKC.1795 ‘Alstons and Hallam, 69, Cornhill, London’. C.1865 www.oldetimeantiqueclocks.com www.oldetimeantiqueclocks.com Tel: 01508 532188 Email: [email protected] Tel:01508532188Email:[email protected] OAK BANK FARM, WACTON, NORFOLK OAKBANKFARM,WACTON,NORFOLK Keystone Flat Mainspring Clamps KFM 200 $6.00 set. Keystone Mainspring Winder CMW-2 with 20.326 Support $400.00 (wood base not included) regulars 7 9 35 41 Letters Analysing dial paint. Clock talk columns 33 Penman’s Q&A 50 Diary of a clock repairer A matter of support by Laurie Penman. collecting 11 The Ogdens Brian Loomes investigates one of horology’s most complicated families. Godinton clock set going. The interview Michael Debenham, clock wheel cutter Under the hammer Horological items sold at recent auctions. Two men and a boat by Robert Loomes. comingsoon 17 A quartet of alarms Part 2/4: A weekduration iron alarm by John Robey. A bezel winding clock Robert McIntyre describes an interesting small Zenith timepiece. Plus Diary of a Clock Repairer, Under the Hammer, Readers Letters, Clock Talk ... and much more! 26 Clocks of Northallerton Ian Beilby visits an exhibition devoted to the clocks of a North of England town. thisissue Volume 37 N3710, 2014 Volume N October 4, April 2014 o o practical 23 37 Striking repairs Part 3/4 Laurie Penman shows how to fix rack striking by designing and making a complete system from scratch. Cleaning a fusee lever watch movement Part 3/6 by Ian Beilby I have an apology to make—again! Last month I announced that our new revamped website would be launched ‘around the end of August’. Well as I write this it is mid-September and the website still hasn’t been re-launched. It has turned out to be a much more ambitious undertaking than we had previously thought and has therefore taken rather longer than planned. However I can now announce that by the time you are reading this issue the website will have been re-launched and I can guarantee you that it will be bigger and better—by far—than it has ever been before. One significant change will be a ‘Classified Advertising’ page, which will allow us to publish all Freemarket ads online as well as in the magazine. Freemarket has been a big success story for Clocks over the years, and it is to be expected that giving it an online dimension will elicit an even greater response to the advertising. Other new features are a faultfinding guide, though this is aimed more at beginners than experienced horologists, and an interactive glossary of horological terms. I would also like to remind readers that there is also a series of indexes to most volumes of Clocks, and that these are fully searchable. This means that if you are looking for information on a particular clockmaker or clock repair topic, for example, you just need to type in the search term— the maker’s name or the repair topic—and all the yearly indexes will be searched simulataneously for mentions of that maker or topic. This makes searching the indexes much simpler that might otherwise be the case. Another useful feature is the Clocks ‘Directory’, a section of links to other websites of horological interest. Though these websites may be findable using Google, Bing and other search engines, our ‘Directory’ brings them all together in one place, obviating the need to troll through masses of irrelevant search results to find one or two gems. In that connection, if you know of useful horological websites that do not appear in our Directory, why not suggest them for inclusion? One thing about a website is that it can be updated at will, and that’s exactly what we’re planning to do. John Hunter [email protected] Editor John Hunter Subscription Prices (one year/two year/three year) UK Rest of Europe USA Australia Rest of World £55/£105/£155 €77/€147/€217 US$99/US$189/US$279 AU$125/AU$245/AU$355 £62/£119/£176 UK Subscriptions Clocks Magazine Splat Publishing Ltd 141b Lower Granton Road Edinburgh EH5 1EX, UK Tel: +44 (0)131 331 3200 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.clocksmagazine.com UK Newstrade Distribution Comag Specialist, Tavistock Road, West Drayton. North American Subscription Agents IMS, 3330 Pacific Avenue, Suite 404 Virginia Beach, VA 23451-2983, USA. Toll-free: 1-800-428 3003. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.imsnews.com Australia/New Zealand Subscription Agents Smith and Smith, The Sydney Horological Centre, PO Box Q550, QVB Post Office, Sydney 1230, Australia Tel: 02 9290 2922. Fax: 02 9299 3400. Email: [email protected] Website: www.smithnsmith.com.au Printing Stephens & George, Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glam, UK Clocks magazine is published on the fourth Friday of every month by Splat Publishing Ltd. The Publisher’s written consent must be obtained before any part of this publication may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, including by photocopying and using information retrieval systems. Splat Publishing Ltd accepts no responsibility for items/services bought or sold as a result of advertising in Clocks. 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Articles and readers letters may also be used, without permission being expressly sought or payment made, in electronic form such as, but not limited to, on the Clocks Magazine website: http://www.clocksmagazine.com BACK ISSUES The back issues listed below are still in print and can be purchased direct from us, either by filling in the form below and sending it to us with your remittance, by telephoning us, or from our website: www.clocksmagazine.com/back-issues. All back issues are priced £5.95 including UK postage. Overseas readers please order back issues at our website: www.clocksmagazine.com/back-issues. 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Please send the back issues marked above to: Title (Mr, Mrs etc)......... First name ................................ Last name ......................................................................... Address ....................................................................................................................................................................... Postcode .......................................... Country.............................................................................................................. Daytime telephone No.................................................................................................................................................. E-mail address ......................................................@.................................................................................................. Return with remittance to: Splat Publishing Ltd, 141b Lower Granton Rd, Edinburgh EH5 1EX, UK. readersletters chosen for paint analysis and are unless of course the base metal is at the time was estimated to be about 40 identified as D1, D2, D3. primarily lead. To conclude, it is not years. In addition to the workplace D1. An area of blue paint in the centre possible to discern the exact original environment account must be taken of of the stylised bird. constituents of the painted surfaces other influences such as nutrition, D2. Orange/coral colour petal in the using the p-XRF but it does seem sanitation and housing conditions. The rose situated top left spandrel area. possible to detect some features unique high levels of lead and arsenic D3. Main background cream/beige to the paint compared to the metal base. highlighted in these experiments may colour (probably time worn) left-hand The table indicates the findings in parts have played a significant part in the life side of centre of dial. per million from which Dr Allcock has expectancy of the japanners. The dial was scanned and the results extrapolated her results. There is of This Wilson dial, despite crazing and for the scanning reveal some interesting course a margin of error to be born in age discolouration, has displayed insights into the possible composition of mind. enormous qualities of longevity. It will the paint used on have the clock face experienced surface. In all constant Phosphorus SulphurChlorineArsenicLead three of the scan changes in (P) (S) (C) (As) (Pb) locations, there temperature, were significant humidity and D1 5196 202362 8019 28691 430318 levels of air quality phosphorus (P), throughout its D2 5358 206078 12891 35560 457805 sulphur (S), 240-year life, a chlorine (C), testament to D3 6004 210067 8696 36552 423111 arsenic (As) and the japanners lead (Pb), with of yesteryear. trace This exercise concentrations of cobalt (Co), zinc (Zn), Primarily, this investigation in demonstrates the usefulness of p-XRF nickel (Ni), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), collaboration with Dr Samantha Allcock technology in the field of horology. calcium (Ca) and silicon (Si). The and her assistant Sarah Elliott of Another particular application would be proportions of the main five elements Bournemouth University was to the determination of the composition and differ between the scan locations, but determine in some detail, but in a nonauthenticity of metals. We hope that only minimally, suggesting some destructive manner, elements within the readers of Clocks will find the topic interesting. Our sincere thanks to Ben M consistency in paint mixes used. D2 is paint of a late eighteenth century Ford BA (Hons), Senior Project Manager, uniquely high in aluminium (Al) but what japanned dial. Our focus was on a Oxford Archeology; Dr Samantha Allcock role this element plays is uncertain. More particular dialmaker at a roughly given and Sarah Elliott both of the Department noticeable are the reduced levels of time. This letter is not a treatise on of Archaeology, Anthropology and metals present in the scan results such chemical compounds and their uses in Forensic Science at Bournemouth as tin and copper (although copper was the painted dial industry. Today, arsenic University, England. slightly raised in D1), suggesting that the and lead are well known toxins; whether N & D Woodford painted surface, to an extent, masked this was realised in the eighteenth West Somerset information about the base metal(s)— century we do not know. Life expectancy HAVING TROUBLE GETTING YOUR COPY OF CLOCKS MAGAZINE? RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY BY FILLING IN YOUR DETAILS ON THIS FORM AND HANDING IT TO YOUR LOCAL NEWSAGENT. Please reserve/deliver me a copy of Clocks every issue until further notice. Title Mr/Mrs/Ms/other (please specify) ............................................................. First name ................................Surname ......................................................... Address ............................................................................................................ .......................................................................................................................... ...............................................................Postcode................................. Daytime telephone No ............................................................... 8 October 2014 clocksmagazine.com Letters to the Editor Clocks welcomes letters from its readers on any horological subject, whether commenting on something which has already appeared in the magazine or making a point about a clock, clockmaker or clock-related topic. Where appropriate, letters should be accompanied with a relevant photograph or photographs. For film cameras please send prints. For digital cameras please send jpeg files (.jpg) unedited, exactly as they are downloaded from the camera. clocktalk Godinton House turret clock set going again A 400-year-old turret clock originally installed in Godinton House by Nicholas Toke swung back into action on 14th August, 100 years after it was removed from the house on 14th August 1914. The single-handed clock, which dates back to 1620, had been given to Canterbury museum where it has been in storage untouched for almost a century. The museum was supportive of the plans to return it to Godinton. It is has been restored by Tony Russell who has over 35 years of experience restoring and making clocks and has worked at Godinton House for over 50 years. (Visitors to the tearoom will see the tavern clock which Tony made and presented to Godinton.) In 1914 it was updated to two hands by local maker Ashley Dodd. The clock would once have been the only way for staff to know the time as the bell rang out across the gardens, fields and workshops of the estate. The seventeenth century bell is still in use today. It is thought that the clockmaker would have been either William Barrett or Richard Greenhill in 1621, more likely William Barrett as he was a local Ashford clockmaker. The escapement was originally verge and foliot, and was later changed to anchor escapement. It took Tony Russell over a year to restore the clock. ‘A lot of work was needed to get it back into working order,’ he says. ‘It is remarkable how craftsmen 400 years ago built a clock with not much more than blacksmith techniques. I have managed to remove bodged Victorian repairs. Clout nails and staples have been replaced by hand-made iron wedges. Worn brass bearings have been repaired and a chunk missing from the hand has carefully been pieced in. New weights were cast after lots of trial and error.’ Nick Sandford, Estate Manager at Godinton House and Tony Russell set the pendulum of over 6ft swinging once again at 12 noon on 14th August 2014. President of the Antiquarian Horological Society (AHS). Jardine is Professor of Renaissance Studies at University College London and Director of the UCL Centre for Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Projects, AHS gets new President Professor Lisa Jardine CBE, the eminent historian, writer and broadcaster, has become the new clocksmagazine.com October 2014 9 clocktalk and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge. She holds honorary doctorates of Letters from the University of St Andrews, Sheffield Hallam University and the Open University, and an honorary doctorate of Science from the University of Aberdeen. She was a Trustee of the V&A Museum for eight years, and a member of the Council of the Royal Institution in London for five. She is Patron of the Archives & Records Association and the Orange Prize. For the academic year 2007-8 she was seconded to the Royal Society in London as Expert Advisor to its Collections. From 2008 to 2014 she served as Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority—the UK government regulator for assisted reproduction. In December 2011 she was appointed a Director of The National Archives. In November 2011 she was elected an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. In 2012 she was the recipient of the British Academy’s President’s Medal. In 2013-14 she serves as President of the British Science Association, which in 2012 made her an Honorary Fellow. Jardine has published over 60 scholarly articles in refereed journals and books, and is the author or co-author of 17 books, both for an academic and for a broader readership. She is the author of Productreview New staking tool Clock repairers will find the 'crows foot' staking tool supplied by COUSINSUK.COM invaluable in repair work. The attachment will fit into a vice or bench block and is handy for removing all friction wheels and gears as well as many other clockmaking tasks. 10 October 2014 clocksmagazine.com several best-selling general books, including Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance and Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, as well as biographies of Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Her book on Anglo-Dutch reciprocal influence in the seventeenth century, Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory won the prestigious Cundill International Prize in History. Jardine has had one article published in Antiquarian Horology, ‘Scientists, Sea-Trials and International Espionage. Who really invented the balance-spring watch?’. At the March 2007 Keble Convention she lectured on the then recently discovered Hooke Folio. Nixie clocks make comeback Quite uncommon, the Nixie clock is a remnant from technologies past. Before the invention of the light-emitting diode and liquid crystal displays, Nixie tubes were used by machines to indicate numbers and readings. You may remember them on petrol pumps and they were used extensively inside scientific measuring equipment, and early calculators. The name ‘Nixie’ was derived by Burroughs from ‘NIX I’, an abbreviation of ‘Numeric Indicator eXperimental No 1’. Hundreds of Nixie tubes with size and display variations were manufactured during their lifespan. The first tubes were manufactured by Burroughs in 1954 and were phased out in the early 1970s. Production continued for longer in Russia and the Ukraine, but even there it ceased in the early 1990s. Now the tubes cannot be made any more: they contain a tiny percentage of mercury and would not be permitted in today’s modern standards. The tube is a cold cathode device. Unlike a thermionic valve it requires no heater to operate. It is a simple glass envelope usually containing 10 stacked cathodes, each one shaped to represent a digit from 0 to 9—called glyphs. They are electrically isolated from each other and connect to a wire or pin protruding from the base of the tube. In front of the cathodes is a fine mesh, this is the anode and again this is connected to a wire or pin protruding from the base of the tube. The tube is evacuated of air and instead a low pressure of neon is introduced. If a voltage of approximately 170V DC is then applied between the anode and the relevant cathode, the glyph will illuminate with the characteristic orange neon glow. Nixie tubes have now become quite collectable; some of the more obscure tubes with large digits can be exchanged for several hundred pounds each. A set of six matching tubes can run into the thousands. People like nostalgia and things that are different, and as a result Nixie clocks started springing up, an ideal use for these redundant and collectable tubes. Some original Nixie clocks were made by Karlsson in the 1970s and these are highly sought after. The clocks available today are only available online from specialist electronic dealers and usually sold in kit form for the technically minded, there aren't sufficient quantities of tubes to make any commercial production runs viable—they are aimed at the enthusiast or clock collector—however there is a growing community making these clocks just for the love of the tubes!
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