A Clock That Goes Back In Time

In 2004, not long before he closed his barbershop, my father gave me this hanging 8-day regulator clock. It must have hung in his shop for thirty years or more while he diligently and dutifully wound it up once every week until the walls of the old building proved too crooked and shaky for the clock to keep proper time. It came into his possession, I’m guessing, after the death of his brother in 1974 or ’75, and who knows how long my uncle had that clock! All I know is that the clock is damn old! When my father gave it to me I took it to a clock repair shop to 1) see how much it would cost to restore and 2) see how much it might be worth as an antique. The clock dude seemed unmoved by my very old clock, so I could only imagine that though, yes, it is old, it must not be very uncommon. He essentially told me that, fully restored, the clock could fetch $650 to $800. The cost to have it fully restored? About $600 to $700. Thanks, but no thanks. I mentioned that to my father at the time, and he said the clock runs just fine – it just needs a good, plumb wall.










In my dad's barbershop, the clock (top, left
of center) hung from the early- to mid-1970s
until he closed his business in 2004.


I did a brief bit of internet research on it today; the only thing I knew about it prior, thanks to a torn label on the back, and small print on the clock face, is that it was made by the New Haven Clock Company. I got all excited when I saw the little star-shaped logo just beneath the center of the face; it reads “1853!” My breathing got a little shallow when I thought this clock could be over 150 years old!




However, it’s just the year that the New Haven Clock Company was founded. The closest I could find to a match was this, a model called “Bank.”


photo © theclockprofes-
sor.com, used without per-
mission

I imagine the guts are all the same, just the wrapper is ever so slightly different; sort of like many American cars today. So it’s likely that my clock was made around 1910. Not 150 years old, but still pretty damn old, just the same.

At any rate, I had decided early last week, after I picked the clock up from the house I lived in with ts2bx Mrs. Farrago, that this weekend I would clean it up the best I could, hang it up, wind it up and watch it go. I bought some Old English lemon oil, some extra microfiber rags, some screws and a stud finder (funny, it kept lighting up when I pointed it at me! Go figure!), and today I set to the task.



The hinges on both the regulator door and the clock face door are wobbly loose, so, more than anything else, I was afraid either or both of them would fall off or fall into such a position that I, in my ineptitude, might cause it to bend or break. Fortunately neither of those things happened.

I didn’t do any serious dismantling – I was merely cleaning it up, not restoring it. And I want it to run. I did take apart the pendulum. At the end of the wooden shaft is a threaded metal shaft that is used to regulate the speed of the pendulum’s swing (hence the term “Regulator”), and this one shows evidence of some abuse, or at least neglectful use.



It’s slightly bent, and one of the two tiny nails fastening it to the wooden shaft is perma-loose, allowing the metal shaft to wiggle. Using a small screwdriver and a hammer, I tried gently tapping the nail back into the wood, but at best, I think the hole has been made too large for the nail to have any kind of a grip, and at worst, I think I may have split the end of the shaft in my effort.

As I wiped away the Old English oil, I noticed a lot of brown tone on the rags, and I feared I was damaging or ruining the finish of the clock. I mean, the damn thing was so dirty, I expected to see black on the rag. So I thought maybe it was just the way the oil was mixing with the dirt, making it brown.

I got a little overzealous with the oil and managed to get some of it on the regulator window, and when I got to the part where I was cleaning the glass with glass cleaner, I couldn’t quite get the window clean of the oil.

It wasn’t until I was cleaning the window of the clock face that I realized I was getting the same brown junk on the paper towel as I wiped away the glass cleaner. Did I get that much oil on the glass? And then it dawned on me. For some thirty years in my father’s barbershop, and an untold number of years in my uncle’s house – or maybe even his auto repair shop – and even more unknown years in whoever’s hands before him, this clock hung on a wall soaking up endless hours’ worth of cigarette smoke. The brown stuff was decades’ worth – hell! Nearly a century’s worth of tobacco residue…TAR! Suddenly I felt like a great benefactor, freeing this poor clock from the clutches of a suffocating cloak of cloying clouds.

Hmmm. Too alliterative, perhaps?

Seriously, I did feel like I was rescuing it rather than just cleaning it up.



Carcinogen, anyone?

I shined up the brass disc – which, it turns out, is an iron disc with a brass face attached – reattached it to the wooden shaft, and closed everything up. I found the nearest stud to the center of the wall, drove a screw into it and hung the clock there. I hung the regulator pendulum to the pendulum hangy thingy inside the clock and, just in case the clock had been wound and never run out, I sent the pendulum swinging, which it did for about 4-1/2 minutes before it stopped. Then I tried to wind it up. Nothing. I couldn’t even turn the key. So much for needing nothing more than a good, plumb wall, Pop!


In this shot the streaks that
I couldn't remove with the
glass cleaner are visible in
the regulator window.

Oh, well, if it doesn't function as a clock, at least I finally have some art on my wall!

I will take it to another clock repair place and see how much it will cost simply to get the movement working. I don’t want a full restoration – that would put the clock into a condition in which I never saw it in my lifetime. The paper adhering to the metal face is yellowed and flaking. Half of the wood carving at the bottom left and right is missing, and what’s there – at the four o’clock position – looks itself like a fairly ham-fisted attempt at restoring missing craftwork. I want those things to remain as they are. I just want to be able to hear that steady “click-clock” of the regulator calmly rocking to and fro that I remember from the slow summer days when I was a kid and I accompanied my father to his barbershop, and business was slow, and he nodded off in his own barber chair, and all I could hear was his slow, deep breathing, and that clock.