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 Post subject: Bare wood restoration
PostPosted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:56 pm 
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I was after a different bit of tinkering over the Christmas break, and as I always fancied a proper mechanical clock, I bought a sorry looking one off eBay for £20. It was more or less intact in the photo but the courier turned it into a kit that you can see below. In fairness to the courier, the seller had just sent it in a bin liner with a couple of bits of cardboard for company.

Surprisingly nothing was actually broken but had just come apart and it was somehow all there including the key. Having now seen the terrible bodywork finish, complete with brush hairs and white gloss paint splats, and stinking of pipe smoke, it was beyond just a clean and oiling so would have needed to come apart anyway.
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clockmontage.jpg
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A lot of scrubbing, sanding and french polishing later, it looked quite decent. Yes, I really did go down the french polishing route rather than a simple Danish oil or varnish finish, wanted to put my CSE in woodwork to some use! The door was glued back together, the rusty case screws replaced with new brass ones but keeping the original side latch, the case was finished.

That just left the movement to look at, and after a cleaning dunk in an ammonia solution it came up all nice and shiny too. A new suspension spring and a light oiling were the final elements of the recommissioning work. And so yesterday afternoon, with a gentle nudge of the pendulum, to my pleasant surprise it sprang into life and its chime happily replaced Big Ben's at midnight.
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clockfinished.jpg
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It's actually quite shiny but that meant it was really hard to take a good picture with my phone with the light behind, so here's a poor to the side view. Yes, that is a picture of Otley market clock to the right!

I grant you that this is so off topic that it needs to catch a bus to where it should be but you know, there are cogs, gears, suspension, wheels and the going train and with the bad weather I was in no mood to fix my bad earth or accelerator cable! :D

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 10:52 pm 
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Great job! And a stylish addition to your home.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 11:42 pm 
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Thank you, I agree, think it looks very nice, and it has a lovely soft sounding chime too.

Next week I shall be showcasing my latest line in 50s Radiograms, beautifully finished, featuring a VW 1.8T AUM/K03s powerplant. :lol: Actually, in reality, my door cappings are looking past their sell-by date if I fancied some more woodworking.

Just thought, might be worth mentioning that it is a relatively cheap mass produced clock dating from around the early 1920's, so old but not some antique piece if anyone is horrified at my handiwork. The date will have to be between 1920 and 1926, as it has a Gustav Becker Silesia movement made for Etzold & Popitz of Leipzig under the brand name of DUFA. They started that brand in 1920 and then declared themselves bankrupt in 1926, the remains of the company being bought by Kienzle. The internet is a remarkable resource for research sometimes, as I knew nothing about clocks until last week whereas this week I know my crutch from my arbor to my suspension spring!

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:57 pm 
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Superb work and result! 8)

I find the restoration of absolutely anything mechanical, fascinating.. 8)


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 6:55 pm 
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A nice link with Kienzle too!


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:22 pm 
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Smart work there, I'm interested to know how you have refinished the face.
Looks like it was scratched brass, to a white face with the same font of numbering?

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:55 pm 
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Smart work there, I'm interested to know how you have refinished the face.
Looks like it was scratched brass, to a white face with the same font of numbering?
I cheated, kind of. It seems that a lot of original clock faces are actually just thick white paper, you can still buy replacement ones, and it got me thinking of a plan. As there was no way to recover my badly scratched brass face without losing the numbers, I had to get creative. I took a high-resolution scan of the existing face, cleaned it up on my PC, re-created the missing digits by copying and pasting over with good ones, tracing the outline of missing bits and the dial markers, and ended up with a clean template of just the numbers. Printed it off on some white card, cut it out and put it in place.

The ultimate plan is to completely clean up the brass plate, print the template on to some transparency film and then screenprint the numbers back on to the plate. The only reason I'm bothering to do that is the font used seems quite unique, I've looked and cannot find it on any other clock.


:idea: As it's National Trivia Day, here's a good one, not all clocks are clocks, as only a timepiece that chimes is a clock, otherwise, it's a timepiece! The reason for this is that the word clock is Celtic for bell and nothing to do with time.

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:31 pm 
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Only a thought, I've had a quick look on Ebay, there are quite a few
brass sheets available for a couple of quid, from 0.2mm, assuming you can cut a cirlcle out.

Use your scan of the numbers to make a template and paint on (Hammerite preferred) :lol:

Nice work though Raf, infectious too.

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:48 pm 
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...hence 'six o' clock' actually being six of the bells!

More links between Celtic and French; bell in French is 'cloche', in Welsh 'gloch'...see also words for window, crown etc...


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:22 pm 
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Very cunning, it's the ingenious of mind that has got the human race to where it is now and sometimes the simplest of methods available to us.

Great work Galileo

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75 Sprint in Magenta called GunGaDiN GGD944N
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:25 pm 
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Thank you Trevor, it was one of those epiphany (topical of me!) moments when I was wondering what I was going to do with the dial, it let everything down to leave it as it was.

I'm impressed by clock being Celtic, added to the trivia bank that one for sure.

Might well go down Mahesh's route, unless anyone has any ideas on how to create a satin or brushed circular finish on scratched brass? I only did woodwork at school, as I didn't fancy metalwork when I chose my options!

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Current fleet: '75 Sprint, '73 1850, Daihatsu Fourtrak, Honda CG125, Yamaha Fazer 600, Shetland 570 (yes it's a boat!)

Past fleet: Triumph 2000, Lancia Beta Coupe, BL Mini Clubman, Austin Metro, Vauxhall Cavalier MK1 & MK2, Renault 18 D, Rover 216 GSI, Honda Accord (most expensive car purchase, hated, made out of magnetic metal as only car I've ever been crashed into...4 times), BMW 318, Golf GTi MK3 16v x 3


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:41 pm 
Nice work and an interesting off-topic subject too. A very enjoyable read.

Now with a brand name like DUFA it is no wonder they went bankrupt!

And to add to the linguistic origins of clock, gloch, bell etc there is the glockenspiel musical instrument. Glocken means bells and spiel means play.


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