Repairing The Seat Board On An Early American Long Case Clock

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Amateur Repair Time. We're here at the shop today. I bought this old uh tall case clock, old grandfather clock at an auction. I paid an entire $7 for it. And it's missing some parts, but um I could tell by the weather it was going to rain today, so I had to bring it in. So, I'm not going to be able to take it uh to the shop yet, but we can. We've got it here at the not I'm not going to be able to take it to the amateur repair time shop yet, but we've got it here at the uh the arcade shop. I wanted to see if I can figure out what the deal is with it, so maybe I can order some weights or something. Um, this thing I think is from about 1,800 and they sold it for seven bucks. Isn't that sad? But I like it. Now, it does have a little bit of damage here on this corner where they put some nails and things in it. We should be able to glue that back or however it was originally fastened. This side looks like it's in better shape. It's a very plain one. Um, doesn't have a ton going on, but if you know me, I like those. I like the ones that are kind of the common ones. Um, it's got a flat top, which is kind of unique. Usually they have arches and things and whale tails and all that stuff, but this one's completely flat, which is pretty cool. And it is tall. It's probably like 85 in tall, something like that. It's missing the weights. I couldn't tell from the Oh, look. It's got a lock. That's pretty cool. I might have to figure out how to get a key to work with that. Um, it's missing the weights. In the auction, you could just see it like this. I was hoping that maybe they were had fallen down in the bottom, but they're not. They're completely missing. That's all right. Um, some of this stuff like the hinges can probably help us date it, but what's going on there? It's like a band, isn't it? Where they put a piece in sideways. That's weird, huh? Yeah, look at that. I don't know if you can see it. So, that's a piece of wood that's been added sideways. Never seen that before. I guess to give it strength. It's a little dark back here, so I can't see it too great. Maybe you can see the variation. Can you see that? There you go. Well, that's pretty cool. I guess that just made the door stronger. So, yeah, it's kind of plain, but it's it's built pretty nice, actually. Look at the Look how nice that back is. Um, and then, as I understand, the top slides off so that you can get to the movement. So, I want to see if there's any markings or anything on it. It's been painted. I don't know what kind of wood that is. And you know, it may have originally been painted. Just looking online, I think it's from about 1800. You see all this? Just a wood movement in there that you can see through the window. That's really cool. All right, so let me slide that bonnet off. We'll get a better look at the movement and of the uh the face, the dial. So, here is the bonnet or hood. Um the door does open, but there's no handle on it, but it doesn't look like there ever was. There's no hole or anything. That's kind of interesting. I was saying that it's it's a plain one, but it's not necessarily a cheaply built one. Um, it's it's nicely constructed. It could just be though that they all were. Maybe we can tell what's going on here. Something missing. Kind of looks like it. Yeah, I think maybe there was some kind of trim around the top. I didn't consider that possibility. Maybe there was I don't know. It looks great like that though. But maybe there was some kind of Who knows? Who knows? Boy, she's tall. So, is that wood? Yeah, the dial is painted wood. needs a little work. And on the pictures online, you know, they were showing it from a distance and I was like, "Oh, there's some damage up there on the top, but not really. If you look, that's a lake." I thought that was like where the paint was missing. That's a lake. And it's kind of got like a metallic look to the paint. And so it's got roses here in the corner or flowers here in the corner. And so the best I can tell by researching online, it looks like this may have been made around 1800. So let me um if that if that will pull out, I'll just pull that whole movement out. But if it won't, um, because it doesn't have the pendulum or anything. If it won't, we'll just see what we can see. But I think I can get the whole thing out of there. All right. So, here on my repair bench, I've got arcade monitors. I've got video game systems, um, pinball books, and antique clocks. Boy, I got it all now, don't I? There's some jukebox stuff over there. Okay, so the top corner here's a little damaged, and it's got a little bit of wear, but it's not that big of a deal. But if you look at the actual movement, the the plate on the bottom has split. I hope none of those gears are damaged. That would be almost impossible to repair, I would think. So, let me carefully see how I can turn this around without damaging the dial so we can see how bad that is. Okay. So, here's the bottom of it with the lines coming out of it. And you can see that they've got the front plate of the movement pieced in here, but it's split around it. The bottom plate or whatever you would call that. Okay. So, let me carefully. And this little piece came off. Don't you love it when you got something ancient that's falling apart? We'll keep that. Let me spin it around so we can see the back. Yeah, she's old. H. So, there's the pendulum, the lead or whatever they call the pendulum lead, I think. And the suspension spring would fit up in here. So the suspension spring would fit here and then the pendulum would hang down through here. This is the crutch. That is so wow. Wooden gears. I suppose that's correct. I guess. No, I think it's broke. Yeah, the strike's not going to work, right? So, it'll work. It's just not going to work, right? Well, it won't it won't permanently work. That won't work, right? Hopefully, that's a common part. We can get another one. Um, I may be able to repair it if I got real creative with some glue. I might be able to repair that. So, basically the way this works is when this comes down, if it's in a slot, it'll stop. And so, this is turning um and it's turning Yeah. that way. So whenever this is pushed back up which is done by this probably this lever uh this is very similar to the um the movements in the original Seth Thomas clocks very similar. I'm I guess they're all similar, but um whenever this is pushed back up to strike to start the strike again, this wheel will start turning and this will come down as it go as it hits the strike, which that's another thing. Is there a bell or something that it hits? Maybe missing a bell. We'll figure it out. Um and so if it lands on a higher spot, it goes back up and does it again. And then if it lands in a lower one, it stops. So there was supposed to be a [clears throat] So that's starts there. One, two, three. This one would have been starts there. One, two. So, I think there would have just been one wooden piece in the middle there, which is why it's missing because it was the easiest thing to break off. Okay. So, that's that. Some of this stuff, like this cog, I mean, you could probably make you could whittle it. You could be an old school whittler. You could whittle that if you were good enough. I'm not, but you could. All right. These are they're they're all wood. It's just they're they've got metal attached to them, but they're they're wood. I would like to get it put back together. If I could get it pieced back together, I would feel a lot better so it doesn't break apart. Let me mess with it a little bit. Okay, so I was I was able to get everything back in its position where it goes and slide the bottom plate back together. And then I put some glue in a few places. I didn't do the whole thing because I don't want to uh I don't want to glue that front face plate um in there permanently. I think that's supposed to be made where it can come out. But we're going to clamp it and let her dry like that. Um there is it looks like there's one pinion or whatever you want to call it missing which I would imagine probably gets hit by this as it turns. which is what's going to make your your your gong actually happen. So, there's something missing here. Um and also, um you know, if there would have been some kind of bell or something, probably. So, that's missing, too. Who knows how long this stuff's been gone. I don't like that. But basically, what it'll still work like that. It's just it's not going to keep the strike the right time because what'll happen is every time it gets to 12. Uh it's going to hit 14 times or something like that. Um and then instead of hitting one the next time it'll hit two and blah blah blah. So it'll it'll the count won't ever be right. But that can be fixed if we get the thing running. It should run because there's just not much, you know, it's not that that complex. Um, so yeah, here's the governor. And they did use some metal, but it's all minimal. It's like, you know, just little staples and stuff, little pins. It looks like I did see one metal gear in there, though. Um, yeah, the escapement wheel looks to be metal. That's pretty wild. What is that hook thing down there, too? Who knows? All right, so I'm going to let the glue dry, but guess what? I have I have something exciting. Are you ready for this? What are we looking at? Your guess is as good as mine. That might be a repair mark. It might be a makaker mark. And there might be more of them. I don't see any other ones. What does that say? I can't tell. Well, what do you think? Leave your comments below. What do you think that says? It appears to be written in pencil to the naked eye and you can see it but just barely. Let's see if there's any more. I don't really want to take that front plate off. I mean, maybe we will later whenever we clean it all up, but you know, I was saying, "Oh, it' be hard to get parts for those." I'm not so sure I believe that. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these were very similar and that they had different clock makers copying someone else's design because it's very similar to the uh the later Seth Thomas movements. So, you know, Seth Thomas probably copied these movements that, you know, had been in use for a long, long time. So, it was probably just a thing back then where people copied it. I don't see any other markings. Okay, let's look at the face a little better. And yes, I didn't want to have to clamp the face, but these things do have rubber boots on them. And I went light, so hopefully it won't scar it. But if it does, had to be done. So, you see how the that that stuff is kind of raised? It's like a gilded kind of look. And then there's some there's some water. There's a boat. Little town. Maybe a water tower or something up on the hill. Some trees. And I said that's enough. [snorts] All right. So, it's uh Roman numerals and the uh minutes are actually marked every five minutes. You see how they've got 5, 10, 15, 20, all that. But there doesn't appear to be any kind of markings of a name or anything. It's probably just a really common clock. I mean, there was somebody who made it, but it probably wasn't anybody. um they probably just made them for a few years and or you know maybe their whole life but they they didn't make them in mass production or anything. So you can kind of date it from what I understand by these things on the corners and by the general look of the dial and by the the painted little relief up here. So we look in the case to make sure there's no markings in it. From what I understand though, a lot of times the cases were made by different people. Someone might even have a movement and then they had a case made for it. I don't see any markings. This has been glazed at some point. That's kind of neat. Like it looks like the front was reglazed. Maybe they replaced a broken piece of glass or something. But there doesn't appear to be any markings. I don't have any clue what kind of wood that is. Kind of looks like walnut, which you know is real common. Look at my little record player I got too. Hey, we're just giving stuff away at this auction, folks. So, this obviously would have been a later date. Well, let's see what's down on the bottom. So, that board down there kind of flops into place in the bottom. I've heard before, I think Matt was the first person who told me about this, but I've heard before Oh, there's something down there. I've heard before. Yeah, there's something that um if the weights broke, like if the string broke and the weight dropped, that would break through the bottom of the case. Yeah, that fits down on there. It's kind of jointed to fit in there. [snorts] Wonder if I've got it backwards. Let me try flipping it around. It didn't fit great. [music] Oh, I just didn't have it centered right. Well, that's pretty cool. So, there is no markings at all. anywhere that I can see anywhere on this cabinet. The only thing that is any kind of interest is how they built that door with that little sideways piece in there. I don't know if that's super common, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through to make that door. So, maybe it was made a little nicer than um I originally thought. Okay, this is in it. What would that be for? Where would that go? It was glued on. There's no nails in it. Oh, look. It was glued on on the corners. So, the middle may have been exposed because it's stained, but the corners aren't. It's great mystery, people. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Mystery solved. Let's see if there's one on the other side. There is not. So, there's one missing. Ah, okay. All right. Well, that makes sense. I thought that looked a little rough. So, there's that. And if I can find one similar, there should be one on the other side. All right, cool. Problem solved. Okay, so we wait for the glue to dry and let's see if we can date it by the the stuff that's on the dial. All right, so I'm on a website antiqueology.org or and this is a English long case dating chart compiled by John Nebone. Now English long case that's not the same as this one. This is almost assuredly an Americanmade one. You can kind of tell by the wooden movement apparently. So anyway, he has went through and shown you kind of what the English were doing. And you know, America was an English colony up until a certain little bit of time. Look, look folks, that was a long time ago. So I ain't a I'm not apologizing as it you know it's all good now. Okay. So uh numbering dotted minutes. This one does have dotted minutes. So he's saying that the normal period for that would be 1770 to 18800. Minutes 5 10 1520. It has that as well. Same 1770 to800. 1530 4560 only. It does not have that. So that would normally be 1800 to 1820. Uh minutes not numbered. These are numbered. That would be 1820 to 1870. So everything's pointing to 1770 to 1800. And then you've got the minutes only, you know, on the quarter started about after 1795 and ran till maybe 1830ish, right? Uh hours in Roman numerals. Yep. So from 1700 to 1800 and then it kind of fell out of fashion and then it came back from 1825 to 1870. From 1800 to 1820, the hours tended to be in Arabic numerals. Uh full minute band. Ours does not have a full minute band. It has the dotted minutes. Single-handed clocks. Ours do not have is not a single-handed clock. Um and again, this is this is English longase clock. False plates. This does not have a false plate. So, false plate is um there's there's a plate behind the actual dial. Um I don't have a good example of it, but this one is is much simpler than that. This one doesn't it's not super ornate or anything. It's literally just a piece of wood that's painted with a hole in the middle of it for so hands can stick through it. It's just much more simpler, right? But some of the design ideas of it um would have probably been, you know, similar to the more expensive ones. Okay, so it's without. So they're saying that was 1770 to 1790, but maybe up till 1840 or so there may have been some too. Uh the corner sprays of flowers or fruit. Ours are ours is a spray of flowers. So 1790 to 1800 shell fans semi gem geometrics don't have that uh ruins churches landscapes that's not in the corners though all white we don't have it's not all white uh and it's not gold spandrel corners we don't have those are those little things that look like they're glued to the face we don't have on ours like a little geometric thing arch name only. Ours does not have a name. Birds and flowers on white ground. Ours does not have birds and flowers on a white ground. Ours has a vignette inset in white ground. That's pretty much what ours has. 1795 to 1815. And that's a good one to see because you can see that according to him, you're not going to see that before 1790 and you're not going to see that after 1820. Filled with a painted scene. And ours does have a painted scene, but it says filled with a painted scene. He's talking about the arch. If you look around online, you'll see a bunch of them. And literally the entire thing is painted. It's just this big old scene. Ours has like a white background and it's a vignette. It's got a little circle around it, right? So, ours is not filled with a painted scene, which probably puts it before 1820. Gold on silver background. No. Uh, luminous. No. Swing figures. Moon dial. Strike silent feature. I don't know about the striker silent feature. I don't think we have that because I didn't see anything to turn that on or off. And ours is completely silent. There's no bell. Okay. Shape or size? It's arched. So, puts it from 1770 to 1870. Square circles. Width 10 12 to 13 in. That's ours. Ours uh the the the run of the dial from the second track all the way across is about 11 and 1/4 in. And then total it's like 12 inches total. Um, and they're talking about the dial, right? Or the face. So 1770 to 1810. At 1810, they started getting bigger. Date indicator, none. 1770 to 1870. Ours has none. Pointer steel. Pointer brass. Aperture square box aperture curve. We don't have we have none. And then hands non-matching steel 1770 to 1790. And then matching steel. That's what ours are. 1790 to 1815. Matching brass. Non-matching brass. Okay. So, if I'm going by his chart and if it was an English clock, I would say it's about 1800 or maybe 1795. maybe a little bit before 1,800 if you're just taking everything into effect and you know throwing a percentage at it, right? So it' be 1795 to 18800 or so going by this chart. But why is the movement wood? Okay, here's a picture of one that somebody you bastards. I don't think anybody that runs websites understands just how frustrating it is to be looking at the freaking website and then a popup pops up. Give us your data. No, I'm just looking at a picture, buddy. I'm just looking at a picture. I got pictures on my website. People can go there and look at pictures. And you know what doesn't happen? I don't pop up a popup in the way of your picture asking you for your data. Okay, moving right along. Here's a picture some guy that I won't mention has on his website. Um, and it shows our missing piece. Look, there it is. So yeah, there's a little piece that sticks down that's going to hit that those little pins on the on that wheel and as it goes it's going to wham wham wham make it strike the bell which mounted on the top. So that's pretty cool. So now we know what it's supposed to look like. Let's get off this guy's site. Okay, folks. So, I got it home and um I've been I've had it here for a couple months and I've been asking online and I can't I put it on some Facebook pages and stuff and I tried to get a hold of the the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, which by the way, I have had zero luck with ever. And how long have I been messing with clocks on this channel now? Um I couldn't get much help. I did get one guy that said that he believes it's from a little earlier than 1800. He thinks it's more like 1780 or even a little earlier. Um because there's just so little uh metal at all in the movement. I I don't know if I mentioned it in the video. I I saw in that one part just a second ago. I was asking uh why is the movement wood? Well, that was a um um um what do they call it whenever you already know the answer? [laughter] I don't so I don't know if I mentioned it earlier in the video, but the reason it's wood is because we were getting all of our brass from England and this was made in the United States and about oh you know 1776 we started taking all the brass and shooting it at them. So England stopped selling us brass. So the clock makers had to make all of their clocks completely out of wood, even the movement. So it's so it's just this cool little period of American clock making history. Um, so anyway, uh, the gentleman was telling me he thinks it's a little older than that. He said that the pendulum, uh, would have just been a normal one like any long case clock has. Um, and that the weights, uh, he would he's actually seen 10 cans with like nails and shot in it, which I guess is just chunks of metal, you know. Um, so you can kind of make your own. So, I'm still looking for information if anybody has any information where they can give me about what they think you just saw the movement that we have. Um, I think the first thing that I'll try to do is just simply get the pendulum working. Um, well, I need to get the pendulum working. I think I could just rig up a weight just temporarily. just put something heavy on it that weighs 10 lbs and and uh just to get it ticking and talking. And um the whole problem with buying the parts is I' I'd like to buy the correct parts and the the weights for instance. You can buy about any weight that you want. Um, so I'd like to kind of know what works with it and then order the correct weight because they're like people are asking 70, 80, $90 a piece and you need two of them. Um, the pendulum because it's kind of a pain to ship. An original pendulum for one of these long case uh clocks is going to be like 150 bucks, something like that. But they make uh newer style stuff. So I can get a a nice, you know, brass pendulum bob that looks nice and look that looks old or maybe even get an old one. And then I can get a brand new um pendulum um suspension wire um and um suspension spring and hook it up. So it's kind of a longterm project and but I I'm going to give it a good home. I just have to get it going again. I think the movement itself will probably work just fine. There's really not too much to it. So anyway, once I get the time side running, then we can fix the the strike side. So we, you know, we need the bell, we need the hammer, and we need the uh we need to repair that um hour wheel or not hour wheel. What would you what do you call it? Count wheel. Need to repair that count wheel. So there you go, folks. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any information about it, if you can figure out a maker, I showed you earlier in the video the the the name that's kind of signed on it. Look, my other alarm clock's trying to get in on it. My other grandfather clock. Don't worry, I can have two. I can keep both of you. Don't get upset. It'll be all right. >> [laughter] >> So, yeah, I would love to get this one going, too, but uh it's going to be a longterm project and I'm just going to take baby steps. So, if you got any information on it or you know any you uh uh can help me date it or I would love to know anything about the manufacturer if we can figure that out. Let me know down below and I will see you on the next video. I hope you enjoyed it.