1880 Ansonia Clock Restore for Cliff #27

So I had another real nice clock come in the shop a couple days ago and this is an Ansonia but let's take it over to the bench and see what's going on with it. This is just a really nice Ansonia. First thing I'm going to do is get that dial off. I'll need to remove those hands. It's got the original hands on this. Three screws on the back here. Now that dial should drop right off of there now. They're very old. I would say it is late 1800s. Very nice dial. And down at the bottom here there is some printing down there. It says manufactured by Ansonia Clock Company, New York, United States of America. It's got a real nice beveled glass on it. It's heavy too. It's real heavy. We'll set this aside and take a look at that movement. This came to me from a Cliff from Tennessee and he told me that when he was a child, I don't quite remember what age he said he was, but he said he fixed this clock. He put in a click spring and he said click spring broke and he needs, wanted somebody to fix it this time. Take a look at it here. Yes, it looks to me the click spring is broken. Actually, it looks like it's missing. We'll get that fixed up. It looks like it could use a good cleaning. These pivot holes, there could be some rust on some of these pivots. It does look a little bit like rust. And over on this pivot here, that could just be dried up oil. All of these pivot points here, it should be pulled apart and cleaned. I mean, this is a very nice movement and it's a little dirty in there. It's possible somebody may have oiled it with some high acid oil. Let's get this pulled apart so we can get it fixed up and get it running again. It looks like the leather is completely wore out in that. It's smashed down right into the brass area. That leather should be sticking out probably an eighth of an inch or more. I'll talk to Cliff and see if he wants me to put a new leather in there for him. Next item I'm going to take loose because I like taking these suspension springs out of here so they don't get damaged. And it's just got a, it's like a nail in here holding it. Suspension springs, they're quite fragile. I wouldn't doubt if that's the original spring in there. Oil seems to be really black in this clock. So I've got the main spring tied off on the time side. Now the spring on the chime side click spring is broken but I'm going to need to wind that main spring up so that I can disassemble it without having too much spring pressure everywhere. So it's time to lift that front plate off. Yeah I'd say it needs a good cleaning. Before I can inspect too much on this I'm going to go ahead and pre-soak this in some solvent and then get it cleaned up. After it's cleaned up I'll go ahead and inspect it a little closer. Every part's in need of cleaning. The escape oil. All the pinions are just very filthy in this. It's almost as if somebody has oiled the gears and the pinions. I don't know if they used a spray lube on it or what. We'll get it cleaned up and then do some further inspection and check for wear. It's going to need some attention here. This needs a click spring made and I may even have to fabricate a new click for this. Just taking a quick look in here. You can see the oil is crystallized. Some of this looks like rust. A lot of it the oil has turned to grease. Time for this to be cleaned. This here you can see where it almost looks like somebody has used some WD-40. Residue coming down here is where you would spray something similar to WD-40 and then the dirt would run down. This pivot hole here looks like there may have been some rust going on there. This is the leftover oil from the main spring that's turned to grease. A lot of this stuff is real gritty. It's almost like there's a fine layer of black dust in there. When I run my tweezers across there it feels real gritty like dirt. This is the second wheel and it looks the same as the rest of them. A lot of dirt between the leaves of the pinion here. Just this one wheel alone you can see how much dirt I'm pulling off. Yes coming off of there like grease. Main spring for the time side. You can see how the click spring goes in there. Let's release this and let this rivet on here is loose. When I get that main spring out I'm either going to have to see if I can tighten that rivet up or I'll make a new rivet and put in there because that's a disaster waiting to happen. So I did a pre-cleaning on these parts. I'll be doing a final clean. I just wanted to get them cleaned up so I could handle them without getting real dirty. This rivet here for the click is loose on the time side. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the back side. I'm just going to swage that over just a little bit more. So I've tightened this pin up. It's no longer loose. It's nice and tight now. It didn't take much. Let's check the other wheel out now. This is the main spring wheel for the gong side. Somebody has taken the rivet and filed a screwdriver head I think in here is what they were thinking. But click spring is missing out So the click wire on the other main spring wheel is a 20 thousandths in thickness. I'll need to find some piano wire that is 20 thousandths for the other side. And what I use for those click springs is this high tension wire. It's basically music wire, piano wire, and comes in different thicknesses. So I'll need to find the right thickness and get a new spring in that other click. So I found some wire, the spring, right like so. Then we'll need to swage that so that it's snug in there. Then that'll swing around there and lock right in there. That'll make it so the ratchet will work. So we'll go ahead and cut that to length and get that mounted in there. So when I fix this click spring here I'm going to need to remove this rivet in here. So I'm going to go over to the lathe right now and drill that rivet out. So I need to fabricate a rivet for the click. So I got the click ready to install. I also made a rivet for it. Now I'll just have to go ahead and peen this over and it'll be complete. So I've got the main springs all cleaned up and I got the click repaired. Ended up having to remove it. Made a rivet for it. So one item of concern that's going to need to be fixed is this collar on here. This brass collar has a split in it. It's supposed to be pushed up against this tension spring. With that collar being split it doesn't have the strength to push against that spring there to give it any tension. So I'll have to make a new collar for this and press it on there. It should have about a thousandth of an inch interference fit. There is no interference fit anymore. But you can see where the split is. So I'll head over to the lathe and make a new collar. Get that pressed on there. So here's the old friction sleeve. See it's got a split in it. And here's the new one that I made. Should work out just fine. I'll go ahead and press that down. Okay that collar worked out really good. It's holding that spring and clutch in place. We can go ahead and start assembling this now. And we decided to leave the original lacquer on this movement. The lacquer itself has yellowed. It's got a patina color to it. And it just adds to the nostalgia of the movement itself. Pegging these holes really helps a lot. It takes all the any residue that's left in that hole out. This is a mechanism for adjusting the clock as far as uh the speed. It looks like it was patented in 1880. Locking washer. So it's time to oil the movement. Now this movement when it was new was uh the plates were polished. And then they applied a lacquer to it. And I talked to the customer and they didn't want the original lacquer to be uh taken off and repolished. So this back side here it is uh fairly shiny but it has the old lacquer on there. And it has like a patina to it. And the suspension spring. So the movement has been on the test stand for two weeks and it's run flawlessly.