Literally, as a long-case clock is tickled back to life.
We are experiencing a period of foggy mornings giving way to brilliantly clear and sunny afternoons.
Yesterday was no exception.
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Having walked some of the dogs around 9am it seemed a good idea to find a task indoors for the morning. How about sorting out the ‘grandfather’ clock, or long-case clock in proper speak!
Every since we came up from Arizona to settle here in Southern Oregon, now almost a year ago, that clock had not been running well. It’s nothing special in terms of its lineage but over many years of collecting and repairing clocks in my earlier days in Devon, UK, I’ve always had a soft spot for the long-case clock.
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This particular clock, as seen in the above picture, is a real hotch-potch. The original face is nothing special and somewhere along the line a previous owner came across a more ‘antiquey’ face and screwed it over the original.
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Anyway, the first task was to even up the movement, again a real mess.
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All this a long-winded way of saying that by the time the clock seemed to be running in a settled fashion it was coming up to 4pm and my creative juices for blog writing, such as they are, had evaporated.
Hence the clock story!
And in answer to those who might wonder why so much time and effort went into such a dreadful jumble of a clock, the one thing I adore about mechanical clocks is the sound of the ‘tick’ and the chimes.
There is no better sound than the steady tick of a long-case clock and those haunting chimes on the half-hour and on the hour.
The video below is a wonderful example of a real vintage clock!
Antique Longcase Clock Striking – J. Woolfenden – Royton (ca. 1785)
This is a client’s beautiful longcase clock that I serviced not long ago. The clock is by J. Woolfenden – Royton and it dates to roughly 1785 (based on some research that was done on it).
In this video, you hear the clock striking 11 o’ clock on a nice original bell. The clock was running during testing, but it was not in beat (I had to fix the leveling later).
Learning from Dogs 
There used to be a strong clock making industry in Colchester, with generations of families of clock makers. We have a huge collection of clocks now moved to Holly Trees Museum.
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Yes, of course. Had almost forgotten that. My days of loving clocks go back to my Colchester times. I had gone to an auction just out of mild interest and one of the items was a beautiful oak-cased long-case clock. Someone had dismantled the clock mechanism, almost into each individual component, and at that auction all the pieces were in a cardboard box. Think I bid £50 to win it.
Anyway, I then spent hours in those Colchester museums trying to figure out how to re-assemble the clock.
Golly, that takes me back a few years!
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Sometimes, though, it seems that those otherwise useful beasties order us around a bit too much 🙂
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Ain’t that the truth!
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