So, after we moved in we saw a few nice bakelite (and related) clocks, and rather fancied one. Eventually we located one on e-bay that was ‘cheap’. It’s a Ferranti model, and the person selling it claimed* that they’d not had the nerve to wire it up to test it, but it probably worked.
Well, it didn’t.
It was very pretty, however:
And we hadn’t paid that much for it, so I thought to myself… “Either it’ll go with a quick service, or I’ll get a new clock mechanism, pop it in, and Bob** shall be your uncle”.
Only it’s (obviously) not quite worked that way.
First up, the original clock’s bearings were shot. It was so stiff, even after a little dobble of oil, that it couldn’t start. And anyway, who wants cables trailing all over their mantlepiece. We’ve gone lot a lot of bother to hide the cables, so really, having one trailing about the place is not really the plan. Instead I ordered a new ‘silent’ clock mechanism from the ‘bay****. And then over the past few weeks have dinked with fitting it. Having disassembled the clock I found that, well, the new mechanism fouled the ring which appeared to be moulded to the inside of the clock face for the purpose of supporting the mechanism. I pondered this for several days, contemplating how to make a sheath to extend the clock mechanism through the clock face.
Having decided that this was going to be
a) Very difficult
and
b) Unlikely to be a raging success
I decided instead to trim the clock face. Hence today’s purchase of the ‘high quality battery rotary tool*****’. I then set about carefully trimming the carefully marked sections from the back of the clock face. In a moment of absolute folly, I decided that since the clock mechanism has a great wodge of empty space in one corner it’d make more sense to chop a chunk of that corner off than my precious clock’s face. Err, not so much. I ended up trimming both.
I then carefully (and I do actually mean carefully) drilled the centre of the clock face to allow the new mechanism to pass through.
Yesterday, before I did all of this I pondered the matter of attaching the hands. See, the hands are not actually the right size. The clock’s hour hand is just bigger than the spindle for the minute hand on the mechanism. The minute hand is just bigger than the spindle for the second hand on the new mechanism, and the clock doesn’t (as you can see) have a second hand. Dismantling and removing the second hand spindle (well, shortening it sufficiently) was fairly easy, as was reassembly (which, in this case, really was the reverse of assembly). I came up with the concept that if I trimmed off the hands that came with the clock mechanism (hideous and cheap as they were) and attached the original hands to them, this would yeild the desired effect. And so it would.
I pondered it for a bit and decided glue would be an option. So I glued it. Now I don’t have any araldite or JB Weld, but I had some other stuff that claimed to glue metal. It doesn’t.
I left it a full 24 hours, being the generous soul I am, and tried it today, and no. No it does not. I didn’t think it would, but despite saying ‘glues metal’ on the packaging, it doesn’t. Then I had a brainwave. Well, I thought it was a brainwave. I could solder it. I’m not too worried about the joint being strong, Solder would work perfectly…
Only, no. It would work perfectly if the material the new hands were made from was in any way solderable. Having cleaned up the back faces of the original hands, they happily took a coat of solder. The new hands not so much. Not at all. Not even slightly. Not with a great deal of patience, flux, and waiting.
So we’re trying a silicone based thing (which is what I have around). I was going to use another impact adhesive I have, but it appears to have gone strange having got (probably) frozen. Feh.
If not then it’ll be a hardware store trip, and some JB Weld. Which will be insane for the tiny, tiny drop of adhesive I need. Feh (again).
* As so many like to claim for things that don’t work
** Or Kate, although that would be confusing. If Kate was my uncle…we’d just have to call Kate, Bob. Err, anyway***.
*** Well, Bob…
**** Which appears to be where everything comes from.
***** It should be noted that the main quality in which it is high is cheapness.
