John Birge & Co. 1848 Column & Cornice Clock - Movement Restoration

This post deals with the cleaning, repairs, and restoration work on the movement from my John Birge & Co. 1848 Column & Cornice Clock.



I think it's fair to say that this movement was a wreck! It was full of botched repairs, solder, and damaged components, I spent at least 8 hours cleaning, repairing, and adjusting this movement over the past 2 days. The movement had enough problems that I thought I might simply swap the whole movement with a spare Birge & Fuller movement that I have, but unfortunately the spare movement I have has the Birge & Fuller stamp on the front plate, and this movement that's original to the John Birge & Co has no name on the plates.

The good thing about having the spare movement, as well as my other original Birge & Fuller column clock (in my collection) is that I could refer to both of them during my repairs.

For now, here are a few "before" photos, and some details related to the problems in need of attention:



The bulk of the issues can be seen in the following photo:
- poor quality and mangled "helper springs" attached to the levers (which are entirely unnecessary in this particular movement)
- crutch wire broken and soldered in 3 places
- all levers and wires horribly bent, kinked, and mangled, some of which have even been clipped short
- entirely replaced and poorly functioning fan assembly
- globs of solder
- the "spade" end of the count hook is broken
- missing pins
- bent pivots
- punch marks around pivot holes
- mangled winding squares
- missing strike advance lever
- incorrectly sized cords
- lots of dirt and some rust



This shows the worst pieces (the two upper wheels had bent pivots):



All the wires were mangled.



Also not clearly visible was the "repair" to the fan's bushing, which is inset into a deep hole, and held in place purely with solder:







Initially I thought I could reuse the existing fan arbour and lantern pinion assembly, but it was a very poor fit. Here I had simply removed all the solder, and knocked the pieces apart.



As I was heating and removing the solder (simply using a small torch and a brass wire brush) I made the grizzly discovery of 3 holes along the rear top plate (near the fan pivot hole).





The smaller holes were enlarged slightly with a cutting broach (mostly to remove all the excess solder), and brass rivets were installed. For permanently plugged holes, I simply cut a small countersink on both sides, and gently hammer a piece of brass on both sides to essentially form an "I" shaped plug. These are then filed and polished flat. The large hole was also slightly enlarged, but I left some of the oval shape. The brass rivet material (any brass scrap) was heat-treated first so that it would better fit and fill-in this slightly ovate hole. The hammering and peening actions re-harden the brass. Be sure to work from both sides equally.



Filing:



Not the best photo, but you get the idea. It's not going to be 100% perfect, but it looks a lot better than the extra holes.





This shows the repair after the new pivot hole and fan were fitted. The location for the hole was marked using a caliper to measure the centre based on the front plate.



The end of the count hook was repaired by filing a fresh surface on the interior side of the remaining stump, and silver soldering a small piece of steel mainspring material onto it. Once it's cooled, the excess steel is filed away to an acceptable shape, and polished smooth.



The warning lever had been clipped short, so using the dimensions from my two existing movements as a guide, I made a half-lap joint and silver-soldered a new length of wire to it.



The excess borax flux and solder can easily be filed away, and a bit of sandpaper and steel wool help to blend in the repair.



These photos show all the repaired levers:







When I had removed all the soldered pieces from the verge, I found only the top crutch with about 1/8" stub of the brass crutch wire left. This was essentially useless, so the nub was removed with a punch, and a new brass crutch wire was installed. The top of the new wire was attached with a friction fit alone. To do this, I hit the wire with a small hammer about 1/8" down from the tip. Just enough to BARELY oval the wire. The wire was then pushed through the hole in the crutch, and held from below in a small vise. The top of the wire (inside the crutch) was then hammered down firmly (like a rivet). Since this is brass wire from a horology supply house, it's fairly stiff. To form the bottom loop, I was very careful to heat-soften the wire at each bend to avoid having it break. The bottom loop is made into a figure 4, and the excess stem was cut flush using a jeweler's saw (which is much easier than trying to clip it with pliers or nippers.



The new fan was a fairly long job on its own. I was able to use a prefabricated pivot and lantern pinion assembly, which I then cut to size. A pivot was formed on the end, and a new pivot hole was drilled into the back plate (in the original location). Once that was done, and the pivot hole was broached and both wheels spun freely (this lantern assembly turned out to be a perfect fit on my initial testing), I then cut a new fan blank (again referring to the size on the original spare movement). The centre divot was formed with a piece of 1/8" steel wire pressed in place with a block of soft wood on the back side, and hardwood on the front.

At this point, I noticed that the fan would not have enough clearance. This is because my lantern pinion assembly sat at a different depth than the original. To get around this small problem, a rectangular notch was filed into the fan to contour the pinion cage. Once the fit was good, a small notch was filed into the arbour, and holes were drilled into the fan for the tension wire.

The last step was to attach the warning pin. A small flat was filed onto the arbour, and centre punched for the hole. The rest was simply drilling the hole, and fitting a friction-fit piece of steel wire, bending it to the correct shape, and trimming it.



The lever with the J hook had 2 additional holes in the stem. I have no idea why they were there, and one even had the remnant of a piece of steel wire in it. The holes are either a later (botch) repair, or an original factory error. In either case, the two levers are in the correct locations (again, checking with my 2 other movements), so I decided to just plug these. The easiest method is to either use taper pins, or suitably sized soft steel wire. The same peening method used earlier was employed.





So after all that work, I was finally happy with everything, the levers were all adjusted (even the hammer tail was at the wrong angle), and everything is back together and functional again.

The movement was finally cleaned and reassembled this afternoon. It did not clean-up nearly as well as I had hoped, so it was given a soft polish all over with ultra fine steel wool.

Angels Comtoise - Part 2 (Repairs)

As you can see from the "before" photos in the previous post, the clock needed some attention. The case panels and frame needed refinishing, the movement desperately needed cleaning, and there were several bent levers. I also noticed that the clock was not striking properly. Someone in the past had modified the main strike lever. I'll go into more detail farther down.

As I said earlier, the first thing I did was clean the enamel dial. I also discovered that this dial has never been taken apart. The brass front has the original crimping around the edges, and retains the original brass rivets that hold it together. I would have liked to repaint the steel plate, but it was not worth the effort, or the risk of damage, so the dial was kept in its current condition.



Here you can see two of the rivets. One holds the porcelain dial, and the other holds the thin brass decoration. You can also see that this corner has a broken dial foot (tab).



This dial foot is still in place.



I will often say "this was one of the filthiest clocks I've worked on" but this time, I mean it. This was the ammonia cleaning solution after cleaning the wheels.



The wheels needed LOTS of scrubbing, longer soaking time, and an additional rinse in lacquer thinner to remove all of the black tar-like residue. I don't really know what was used on this clock, but the parts did have a roofing tar smell to them while I was drying them. Below you can see the cleaned and buffed (with #0000 steel wool) parts, with all the bent and damaged levers straightened.



One of the fun discoveries on this clock is that it was made as part of a batch, and this one was punched as "number 5" with either 5 dots, or 5 small notches (on bridge pieces and the main frame). Not all the parts were marked, but all of the large ones including the pillars and frame were marked.



Stripping the old paint from the frame and panels.



Before stripping. Note that the bell post ring/base/washer piece is actually brass. It looks black, but you can see just a tiny ring of gold on it.



One detail that I neglected to show on the previous comtoise was this brass bushing in the centre pillar (for the motion works). Most restorers simply repaint the entire frame, but since I consider this a "working section" of the clock, I chose to mask it so it wouldn't be painted.



The simplest way to mask this is with a small ball of blue wall tack. The same was done for the vertical hammer post bushing in the top plate.



New paint. I used gloss black oil spray paint for this. 2 coats on each side, with 24 hrs to dry in between.



This shows the unpainted centre bushing after painting. (Note that the hole has not been pegged out and cleaned yet)



Fan/Fly Wheel Repair:

The fly wheel on this clock had a serious problem. This later design (this clock is likely after 1860) uses a brass tension spring that is held in place with a collar. While this arrangement is quite pretty, and works fine originally, it makes it impossible to disassemble the fan from the arbour for cleaning or repairs. In my particular case, the tension spring (which is brass) had weakened in the centre, and it was beginning to crack. This meant that it was impossible to hold any tension on the fan.





While I generally never like to modify anything in a clock from its original state, in this case I chose to alter the fan design in favour of the older style spiral tension spring. This was an easy and reversible repair, and with this style, the fan can easily be taken apart, or re-converted if desired.



Detent Lever Repair:

This was a fairly complicated, or "advanced" repair. It is not necessarily a very difficult repair, but it is probably not one for a beginner.

The problem was with this lever:







When I originally looked-over and checked the clock after unpacking it, I noticed this botched lever, and as expected, the clock did not strike properly. It would ring the hour once, then do nothing on the half hour. For some reason, this lever had been ground and filed, and it no longer had its original shape. With the rest of the clock restored, and all the other levers straightened and repaired, this lever was in no way functional with the pins and stops that it is meant to interact with.

This lever controls all the strike sequences of the clock, including the half hour strike, the hour strike, and the repeated hour strike. To figure out exactly how it was meant to be shaped, I carefully studied my working comtoise clock, and I will attempt to explain as much as possible how the repair was done.

The first step in the repair was to replace the missing steel. For this repair I used soft welding steel (easily obtainable at most hardware stores). The rough existing lever notch was then filed into a nice rectangle to accept the new steel. It's important to have a nice clean joint. The steel was soldered with silver solder. For simplicity, it was easier for me to solder the entire steel bar to the lever and cut off the excess afterwards, since holding and heating a tiny little repair piece would have been awkward and difficult.



The bar was sawn off, and most of the excess steel was then ground away with a grinder, and coarse files.





Now that I had a nice new "blank" to work with, the lever needed to be ground to length. To do this, I had all the strike train assembled, along with the minute wheel, and with the detent set up before the first hour strike (all the way out), the lever needed to be JUST long enough to drop off the "rack/stop lever pin" (I am not sure of the proper name for this lever). If the lever (the one we're working on) is too short, the half hour may not strike correctly. In my case, the lever was a bit long, so I was able to grind the end slightly for an exact fit. If it had not been long enough, a solution would have been to bend the L shaped arm (the one on the detent that carries this lever) inwards slightly (towards the wheel).

Here is position 1, right before the main hour strike, where the flag is just long enough to drop off the "rack/stop lever pin".



The corner notch is the trickiest portion of the lever to get right. Start small, and enlarge it slowly. The lever will need to be taken on and off numerous times, but luckily it is simply held in place with a screw, and it can easily be taken off without taking anything else apart. The notch needs to be wide enough (to the left) to catch the "rack/stop lever pin" AFTER it locks on the stop pin of the third wheel (just behind it). You can see that I made my notch a bit too deep (top to bottom) but it still works nicely.

Position 2, just after the main hour strike, and before the repeated hour.



After the repeated hour, the detent and lever will be in this final third position.



As the minute wheel advances towards the half hour, the lever will drop down the steps and back into "Position 4" (same as Position 1). The only difference is that the notch in the minute wheel only lets the detent fall far enough to nudge the "rack/stop lever pin" and allow it to do one rotation for a single strike.



Here is the completed lever after final filing, sanding, and polishing. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty successful repair, and I'm very happy with it. I'll just add a quick note here that some of the older levers have a "tail" at the top corner, which is simply decorative. I have no idea if this one had one originally, but most of the later movements were simply shaped in this notched flag form.





The clock is now mechanically functional, but I still need to strip paint off the hammer and bell stand (I had not noticed the paint), and then I will need to buy weight cords, hooks, etc. I should be able to post photos of the completed clock soon.