200 Yr Old Clock Restoration: PART 3

All right, so I'm starting the cleanup on the painted clock face here. And you can see just how yellow that varnish has come over the years. And there's quite a layer on it. You can see the gloss there. Anyways, I've been working with for a couple of hours here very carefully with some solutions. And look at these beautiful colors coming out of the sky and the church and the greens. And just the blue that really blows me away. So this area here, that's the same. That's what it looked like before right there. How green and dull that is to that beautiful bright blue color. So I've just worked really carefully with some solvents, some very mild solvents increasing the the strength as I go. The black is very, very fragile. I've done a couple tests. So that I need to be really careful. It's a very mild solution for. And but I think I've got everything figured out. And these colors are just going to be so much more beautiful. Just think about all that beautiful blue sky that's around the whole entire thing. And even metallics on the women's clothing. They're a little bit more poppy. And everything will get a gloss varnish as well afterwards. So we'll just keep working away. It's going to take a few hours. That's for sure. And I'm just going to kind of come back and forth to it as I work through other things. But just look at that difference. So to clean the clock face because the black is so fragile. I'm using a completely different solution which I had to test. And it's more of just a mild cleaner. And I don't want to use any solvents because these black. I'm not sure if they were repainted at some point or what. But they're really, really fragile. So I'm just using not a very stiff brush. Just a really, really soft kind of application to agitate the thinner layer of varnish on these areas. Because as soon as my other solution touches the black areas, not as soon as, but very quickly it softens the black. So I know that from my test area. So I'm just in the house doing some research here on the clock. There are some major art pieces missing. So I wanted to do some research on what they might have looked like. And this is a similar type of clock, but this is the four seasons. And then a depiction up here as well. So they've got the same thing kind of going with a depiction of a seated woman. And you can barely see here, but there's words just like on our clock instead of countries. It's winter, fall, different seasons here. And the paintings and the faces are very similar. So if you look at the whole thing here, it's a much nicer clock. It's a beautiful mahogany rosewood case. I'm trying to do a little bit of research on an area that is right here on my clock that is completely missing. Something like this is missing on on our clock right in the middle here. Okay, so I'm cleaning this guy and I clean the bottom here. And I believe what we're looking at right here is an early depiction of a fart. It's coming right out of the middle of his cloak and it's a swirly pattern. I don't know why else the artist would have done that. It's definitely some kind of fart or poop emoji. Just thought I would let you in on the secrets that I'm uncovering here. And these guys are laughing about it right here. All right, so it's all clean. No more yellow varnish filtering all of these players. Look at how beautiful that is. All those blues in the sky, that's the biggest thing for me. And look at those rocks up there, the pinks that are coming through, this woman's dress. But we've got a lot of missing black pigments that have fluorescence in them. You can kind of see the green fluorescent there. So got a couple of things I'm going to try. But we need to definitely retouch those areas because they are really standing out now that we've got the grime cleaned off of them. So the clock face itself, I'm going to be doing, I need to pick up a special pen, but I'm going to be using a compass to redo the dials and get all the spacing right and also just to get these lines back here so we can get those crisp again. And I've ordered a couple of decals to see if I can use those. And I'm just waiting for a couple of archival paints and varnish to come in the mail. So I'm going to let this sit now for a bit and continue working on the case. All right, so I have done a little research and I'm pretty sure that this clock was made in the little town of Muir. Muirkirk. Sorry, I wrote it down. Muirkirk in East Arshar, Scotland. You can barely see it, but I'll just try to catch it in the light here. You can catch that word right here. And I only started seeing it when I took the hands off and the light started to hit this area. Over here, you can't see it as well. There was an M and it kind of faded away and I really can't see it anymore. But I did a little research and there is a clock maker. Muirkirk is a little village in a very remote part of Scotland and there was a clock maker named W. Hodge. And he was in Muirkirk and I'll drop in a photo of his label that he put on his clock faces. So I'm pretty confident that that's what was written here on this clock face. Going forward, I would love to be able to find that logo to put it back on here, but I don't think that's going to happen. I can almost make it out so that I could trace it, but it's pretty difficult to do that. Anyways, I can also see the outline of the clock faces that are missing here that we need to replace. You can see just a little bit of the shadowing and discolouring on the paint in the bottom as well. You can just see the grid there. So those are cool things that I figured out. Second thing is I've been working on figuring out the colouring and how we're going to do the touches on the ladies themselves. So I did a fill, just a water-based fill on all the parts that were missing and I've done some work with some gold leaf and some paints, some acrylic paints just to do some figuring and I've got here a couple of samples. This is the blue, it's a really, really, really dark blue called Prussian blue and you can make it look pretty much black if it's on there thick enough. And so I did a little test on some of the coats and the pant legs on these ladies and it's definitely blue not black. So that's interesting and but it has that shimmer underneath that you can see right here and really well right on the lady's hat here and that's what I was able to get going right here. So that's gold leaf underneath this blue, this really, really dark blue and we can put more paint on or less and try to kind of mimic that shimmer on the pant leg that's going here. So it looks like I could use a little bit more of the blue, but that's definitely what's going on here. And same thing with the reds. We've got a little bit of a yellow mixed with a cadmium red here for an orangey color and that's going to go over a gold leaf and replace areas of loss like the unicorn's hair here. So we've got this really red yellowy mix on the hair here. So that's kind of what we're going to be replacing it with there and anywhere else that it's missing. So that was a long shot, but it really looks good. So I'm kind of excited for getting these ladies put back together, but I am gonna fill all the voids first with the water-based filler here and get everything level so it's not gonna look like it's got big divots anymore and I'm just waiting for that archival varnish to come in the mail. So what I'll do today is work on the filling and cleaning it off really nicely. I'm just using a cotton swab and just cleaning it away and using my hand as sandpaper to kind of just clean it off really nicely. And this is a trick that I've used on finishes, but also if any of you watch Baumgartner on his YouTube channel, he often does that as well. You can just feel if there's a divot or a high spot with your finger a little bit better that way. So let's get to filling. All right, so I've been working on the line work and I just finished doing, I ordered a couple of these transfers for these grids and I just finished doing this one. It's basically you can order different sizes of grids and you just burnish them onto the piece. I was lucky to find two that fit the old size, but the numbering isn't quite right. I can use the numbers for this one, but on this piece or this grid here, these aren't the correct numbers. So I'll have to either order some different transfer numbers or paint them. So basically I'm just lining up my grid. On this one I could put a nail in the center, but this one there's a big gear welded to the back so I can't put it flat on anything. So I'm going to line up that little cross pretty good. So I'm just going to hold it there and I'm going to use a little burnishing tool. It's got a really soft end for after just making sure everything's pressed down, but at the start I'm just going to use a little bit of extra pressure right there. And I'm just going for the grid. I don't want the numbers so you don't have to burnish everything from these. I'm just going to start at the top. I've got a pesky fly in here today and I'm going to work my way all the way around. All right, it's got some character. A little bit of one number transfer there, but we can get that off with an exacto knife. So I kind of like how it's a little bit rough in some places. Gives it some age. So after that I just kind of go with my tool, turn this over obviously, and just use the transfer paper to protect it while I burnish it back down. Just flattening any little edges that lifted. And that's good. Yeah, so the little transfer piece that we don't want here, we're just gonna knife that off. And there's our two grids. So I'm just gonna fix a couple of these areas and I'm gonna let it dry for a couple days. Maybe in the sunshine, hopefully this line work cures. Yeah, that's better. Good stuff. So I think we'll work from this being my urn. So if you can imagine, it's kind of going to be like this will be the high point here and then it'll come down. We'll scoop it down and this will be the mounting point onto the cabinet. Down here we'll have a dowel. And then up here we're going to kind of have just a very, because this cabinet is very simple, I don't want to go too ornate with this. Just going to be a simple bowl type urn and then it's just going to scoop up. And I haven't decided if I want to do a little ball here. I think it might be too much. I think I might just come to a nice little point and that'll be that because I don't want to go too crazy. All right, so I've pretty much got the general shape down. I'm going to actually just make this a knob. I'm not going to do a ball here. The cabinet is so, so simple. I just don't think it works. And Laura agrees, just so you know. Anyways, so I just need to refine it, take care a little bit of this rough edge, give it a sand and then I'll take the knob down and it'll just be a very small little lifted knob. I don't want anything too crazy. So I'm also going to put a little line in for design. So I'll use my, those of you who are actual turners, I'm sorry for this video. But anyways, I'm just going to put a line in just for a little bit of detail right there. That's it. That's as much detail as it works on the clock. Okay, I guess you're done then? All right, so because we're putting a finial up here, we're going to have to put some support to place it on. So I've made a little block here that's going to fit exactly the width of the old one. And we're just going to presume that's what was there because we have no idea. So, it's as wide as the old one that was broken off that we saw before there. So we're going to need to put some support under this and whatever was here is missing. So I'm actually just going to remove this corner block here and do a whole new post so we can support everything and the finial can go into the top of this. So just pop this out. Okay, so then we can line this up where it's going to go. And I'll give it a cut to length. Alrighty, so we can just glue that in place. And then our little platform will sit up here nicely and be supported and the finial can go on top. Alright, so I've got that piece glued on here and we're going to pop this on now. And I was just, the plan was to just pop this on top of this and that would be that, but it looks too short. So made a little sleeve and we're now going to pop it in there because it looks better. So it wasn't the plan, but I rarely have a plan to be honest. So this was just kind of a creative fly by the seat of your pants here, but I really like how it looks. And I believe this would have been more of what was here before, just going by the shadow that was there left from the old piece. And then we've added this finial and it's supported from the back. So I think in all in all, we've got something that looks really nice and kind of a nice line. And yeah, so I'm going to get it glued on and then we can give it a final little sand on the cabinet and give it a stain and get it to match the rest of the old stuff. Okay, so I am in my house going to spend some time working on figuring out colors and getting these paints going and trying them out. First time I've used these conservation paints. Anyways, Gamblin is the brand name of these guys. They're just little palettes and I have this little plate that works perfect for these guys in here. So I'm just going to use that and just going to be working on some of the in between areas, the non metallic areas to begin with. And getting that going. Also, I was trying to figure out this whole section here that is completely missing. And did a little research and it dawned on me that this is Scotland. Scotland has a flower, and it's a thistle. Just like this is England, England has a flower, and it's the roses. So this is the Scottish thistle. So at least I know what I'm painting instead of trying to figure out if this is a creature or something. So that's a good thing to figure out because I was kind of wondering what the heck I was going to do there. But I'm just going to work on all of the areas that are not metallic and see how it goes. Alright, so I am just about to start doing some gold leafing so I can repair the lady's dresses. And so I'm going to be using high glue as size. And I've got some leaf here that was given to me. And a cute little box. So to use this stuff. So I'm just going to be dotting in the glue only where everything's missing. And then the leaf can stick to that. So I'm just going to really carefully not get glue past where I need to touch up. And definitely not a lot of it's needed. And I'm going to let it dry for a little while. The leaf needs barely, barely any adhesion to stick to where it needs to go. I'm not going to do the really, really small areas because those will just get touch-ups. With a little dot of paint you won't be able to see. It's not worth the gold leaf. But the areas that are supposed to have that shimmer, like here, I'll definitely do it. And it's big enough. So I don't want it to look flat. So let that dry for a few minutes and then I'm going to come back and just pick up the leaf. And it's okay if it's a little bit textured because the other stuff is as well. You can see it just lay down exactly where that glue is. And you can use a brush to kind of burnish it down. I'm just going to pat it with a q-tip here. For all you professional gold leafers, I know I'm not doing this with the proper tools but we're going to make it work. And I'll just transfer the extra to the areas that I need it. Just to get a little bit of shimmer underneath where I need. Yeah, so when that's all good then I'll just kind of brush away the excess when it's dry. And then we can get our colors over top. So I'll let it harden for a little bit, the glue. Doesn't it have a presence? Oh, it's so nice. It's not going to go to the wood burning pile. No, not the wood burning pile now, no.