RESTORATION OF A LONDON BRACKET CLOCK, c.1760

Welcome all to this the 17th in my series of weekly presentations on clock restorations. This week I'll be showing you the restoration of a fine English bracket clock. It took me quite a while to find a suitable clock for restoration but this one turned out to be quite acceptable. In the email that I sent you with the link I mentioned my search for a bracket clock project and the fact that I went to Bath to an auction of clocks and missed out on this restoration project. Unbelievably this project clock sold for more than clocks in good going order. Unbelievable. Here are a few but not all of the English bracket clock styles through the centuries. My favourite being the one on the far right with the inverted bell case top, a broken arch front door and the telltale mock pendulum aperture in the dial centre. This is the bracket clock that I eventually purchased from an auction in the USA. It was cheaper and in much better starting condition than the one in England thus supporting the theory that you don't buy an English bracket clock in England. The clockwork mechanism and the dial were all in good condition but the case had suffered an impact at some stage and had actually broken the mask around the dial and the whole case was riddled with woodworm. But the clock had been made by John Wilkins of Islington London which is in Clerkenwell Parish where all clock work was centred at this period in 1760. The clockwork mechanism still had its original brackets to keep it located within the case as these movements simply sit on a stool within the case. These dark black wooden cased bracket clocks have cases made from fruitwood which is a soft timber from any of the fruiting trees like pear, apple. They have very little grain and hence they're not enhanced by any treatment so their cases were blackened and called ebonised. But these fruitwood cases are very susceptible to woodworm attack. Once the worm gets into the timber it tunnels just below the surface and hollows out all of the trim and all of the casework. Here's more evidence of the impact damage that has been caused to this case. Here's more woodworm damage as it tunnels its way around the top edge of the case and the handle that's been put on the top is not correct. Obviously a replacement but for the amount of damage to this case there's no way you would pick this clock up by a handle. In fact you should never pick any clock up by a handle on the top. So you've seen the state of the clock as I received it and these three pictures show you what it should look like. These are contemporary clocks, English brackets, ebonised cases of exactly the same period, same quality. So these give you an example of my target restoration. There's only one thing to do with a case in this condition and that was to completely dismantle it, taking every part off until I get back to the basic carcass. All the individual components dismantled. After completely dismantling the front and back doors all the old glue was removed and then the frames were rebuilt and then ebonised. Not with bitumen but with a good quality black stain. The bell top was completely broken down into its components then rebuilt and ebonised and also here is the correct style handle that I was looking for to replace the other non-original component that came with the clock. Here's the carcass being rebuilt. Everything had to be taken completely to pieces and re-glued. Here's the die mask under repair. The splits have been repaired and gap filled. The broken arch has been repaired with some infill pieces. Then the entire mask was ebonised with black stain. So with all the individual components repaired, filled, sanded and stained I was unable to reconstruct the case. Here's the case completed with all the woodworm damage cleaned out and rebuilt with plastibond. Plastibond is good for this application because it basically is powdered chalk in a resin and it will accept the stains as readily as the timber. Also you'll notice that the damaged mask has been strengthened from behind with some wooden splats. The original fretwork in the brake arch corners was extremely bad. It had to be repaired on both front and rear doors. A pattern was built up from the remnants of what was there and then that pattern transferred to paper to be a template for the production of new frets. Paper template is good because you can flip it over to make the mirror image to the other side of the door. And here you can see I've cut out with a fret saw the pattern that I developed from the remnants and I've used 1.5mm thick New Zealand beech veneer. A very fine grade timber which accepts very fine and delicate patterns without parts breaking away. Here's new fretwork backed up by red satin as it would be originally. The original dial simply needed a good cleanup. So removing all the components, cleaning the dial plate, re-silvering the chapter ring, the calendar ring, the name plate and the silent and strike chapters, then gilding the spandrels, re-waxing the numerals. I was able to bring it back to the way it would have been when first sold in 1760. The minute hand was not correct. It had been substituted at some stage throughout the clock's life and it needed to be made anew to match the hour hand. Here you can see the correct style for this period. I was doing this restoration on a long weekend and I didn't have any suitable thickness steel. So I was beginning to think where will I get some steel on a long weekend. This is where thinking outside the square comes to the fore. Lawnmower blades readily available seven days a week at your local hardware store. They're available in 1.6mm and 2mm thick. Made from steel. Beautiful material for making a clock hand. Here's the minute hand that I made from the mower blade. It's been fretted out. It's been fettled to give it a three-dimensional appearance and it's been blued to match the hour hand and when fitted to the clock they are a perfect pair. The movement of the clock was in extremely good condition and simply required a strip down, clean out, rebuild and lubrication. Apart from that it was in excellent going order. Here are some of the features of clocks of this period. Beautiful engraving work. Unseen and yet done to demonstrate the quality of the workmanship. So after weeks of case repair, restoration, dial cleaning and restoring and movement servicing I was able to complete the restoration back to near original condition. Early on in the presentation I showed you three clocks contemporary to this one and I'd said they were to be my target. I think I've achieved that. Don't you? Thanks for watching this presentation. I hope you enjoyed the bracket clock restoration. If there's anything I can help you with or if you have any comments or questions just send me an email to the address shown at the bottom of this page. Bye for now.