DIY Antique Clock Restoration - 1920s Ingraham Mantel Clock Case Repair

Hi everyone! Today in the studio, I'm going to be restoring my dad's antique Ingram mantlecloth. As you can see, the body of it has some pretty extensive damage. The paint is chipping, the gold designs are completely faded, and the brass details are almost black with age. So let's start by carefully removing the face. I'm not going to be restoring the face itself as it's made from paper and it can only be replaced. It's in good enough condition to leave as is though. Once the face is off, you may be able to get more information about its make. The number 2 signifies the month of February and 25 is for 1925, the year that this one was produced. Now let's turn this around and remove its innards for safekeeping. The inner workings have already been tuned up by a professional, so I'm just going to be keeping them safely out of the way. The bell chime is bolted into the bottom. It's pretty easy to remove. Next, I'm going to carefully pry off the brass pieces and see how sleek and shiny this whole thing once was. It's important to keep all of the pieces with their hardware labeled and in separate bags. The pillars are held in only by the nails and the brass pieces, so I was able to easily wiggle those ones loose too. To get off the thin, flush decoration, I'm using a fine artist's palette knife. It's super thin, flexible, strong, and the edges aren't sharp, so it's not going to gouge the surface of our clock. Screws hold the pieces of the base together and nails keep the pillar base decoration in place. The palette knife also helps pop those loose. And now for the other side. Same thing here. That palette knife is super helpful. Make sure you get a good quality one and don't forget to keep bagging everything separately. I'm even labeling each column based on where they need to be reattached. You will thank yourself later for doing that. And there we go. Just a few more screws and the whole body of it comes apart. I'm thankful that no glue was involved. Brasso is our next tool. It's going to clean up all of the blackened brass pieces nicely. Use gloves and an old toothbrush to help with the task. Look how pretty it was under all that gunk. It's like night and day with these pieces. They're going to contrast so nicely against the black cloth. Look at that. It's so much better. Now I've got to sand down the body of the clock. I'm using a small sander for the flat parts and a flexible bit of sandpaper. I'm going to be using this tool to reinforce the original stippled design. If I deepen the piercings, there's less of a chance that I'll lose the design when I sand and repaint. This is a bead reamer, but you can also use an awl or something similar. I picked black lacquer spray paint for this. As you can see on this part, I would spray layer, let it dry, sand it smooth, and then spray it again. And look, our designs are still there. As I was buffing the top piece, I realized that I liked the buff, slightly matte texture better than the ultra shiny texture. So I used super fine steel wool to buff the whole thing. Now that everything's looking good, time to put the gold back into the gold stippling. I'm using Winsor & Newton's metallic, it's like a gold metallic ink. It's called gold metallic bronze ink. Shake it well and use the same awl to dot into each spot. Also very tedious, but look, it's totally worth it in the end. I got three out of the four designs gilded, but as you can see, I did lose some of the design during the sanding and painting process. But don't worry, I can just copy it from one of the other designs. I'm using clear tape. I just fold it over, trace the dots with a marker, then I line it up over the missing design and use it to pierce the dots in again. It worked like a charm. Now I need to address those faux marble columns. That marbling effect was popular, especially in that Egyptian green color. I got a good match for the green by mixing Payne's gray and azo yellow medium. For that golden yellow color, I found that the yellow ochre mixed with a little of the same azo yellow worked well. Now, let me tell you, I attempted to do a true paint marbling technique for this, and I did it properly, too, with the Kerrigeden to float the paint and alum coating on the wood and everything, but it didn't work. I tried. Trust me, I tried. It came right off. I think the problem was that the wood was already treated, and marbling only works with untreated wood. If anyone knows of a technique to marble pre-treated wood, let me know. I ended up doing a faux marble texture by hand. But it's actually pretty easy. Once I had the green base on, I put a very thin layer of watered-down green paint to wet the top, and then using a toothpick, I dragged yellow paint in a wandering pattern across the surface. Since the surface is wet, the yellow paint moves around, and it kind of lends to that marbled look. And once it's dry, you can do the same thing again. I didn't want a lot of yellow, so I kept it simple. Then the next day, when they were dry, I put a layer of shellac over them to keep them shiny and protected. There it is! All the pieces, ready to be reassembled! Thank goodness! I labeled all of these pieces, though, for real. Almost there! She's coming together! Let's get the face back on and take a look at our handiwork. Oh yes! Look at that. She doesn't look new, but with a little love, she looks fantastic in her old age. Remember how cracked and faded she was? She has a new lease on life now. My dad even said that she looks better now than when he first saw her decades ago. But maybe he was just talking about my mom. Well, I hope this video was helpful for you. Stay creative, my friends!