Brewster & Ingrahams Beehive Case Repair

This post details a small chip repair on the case of my early brass-spring Brewster & Ingrahams clock. The case is in near mint original condition, with the original worn finish, however, there was just one chip at the very top of the case that I wanted to fix.





The chip looks fairly large, but in reality, you have to realize that this is an extreme close-up, and the actual size is just over 1.5 inches, and barely half an inch wide. The broken pieces of original veneer had been reglued in the past using hide glue, but they were glued in place a bit crooked.

The first step in the repair was to carefully remove the veneer slivers (dampening the area with water, and working under the veneer with a palette knife). With the veneer removed, the excess glue can be removed along with any stain or finish.



The slivers of veneer were then soaked in hot water to clean off the remaining glue. This caused the shellac to become white and cloudy, but the area will be sanded later, so it's not a big concern. If you're aiming to save the finish, avoid using water, and simply dry-scrape the glue.



At this point, I had to decide if I wanted to glue down the existing pieces of old veneer, or trim everything and install a new patch. Since most of the original wood was there, and everything fit together relatively well, I decided to keep everything original, and just fill-in the missing wood. The veneer pieces were reglued using hot hide glue, and the remaining gaps were filled with putty (just regular mahogany coloured wood filler).

Once everything was completely dry, the entire area was block-sanded to give a perfectly flat surface.





The area was then given some touch-up paint, a few coats of shellac, darkened with a bit of dark toner, and coated with a few additional thin layers of shellac. Once the entire area was fully cured (overnight) the shellac was buffed and polished with #0000 steel wool and tinted wax.

I'm very happy with the repair, and the finish blends in nicely with the rest of the case (without needing to refinish anything).

Waterbury Beehive Clock Restoration

This is another restoration project that I just finished this week. This clock has been broken, and in pieces and different boxes for nearly a decade. I originally bought this clock at an auction with my aunt and uncle. It was bought on October 10th 2005.



When I bought the clock originally, it wasn't in the best condition. The finish was still original, but crazed and chipped. There were several veneer chips, and the bottom right corner of the clock was badly broken, and held together with a small wire nail.

As is often the case, I thought I had more "before" photos, but unfortunately I only have a handful.





The clock came with 3 beautiful antique keys, unfortunately, none of them fit the clock correctly. The one on the upper right is close, but a bit of a sloppy fit.











Not too long after getting the clock, I stripped off the old finish, only to discover during the process that the bezel was grain-painted. I was able to very gently remove most of the shellac without damaging much of the paint, but about 1/3 of the original grain paint was lightly damaged.







Since stripping the clock, I've put off working on the case repairs. I did not have any rosewood veneer, and I was dreading the curved veneer repairs. I had the parts labeled and in separate bags (movement, dial, gong spiral) and boxes (wooden chunks, gong base, etc).

Earlier this month, and a little bit at the beginning of 2015, I started making lots of veneer and case repairs on several clocks all at once (with this one in the mix). The case needed part of the dial mask and internal support blocks glued, the base and corner piece reglued, and a little over a dozen veneer repairs.







I was able to repair the grain painting to he bezel quite easily, and the entire case was refinished with traditional orange shellac.







The movement was a standard early Waterbury pinned movement. It was in good shape, with the exception of awful hole-closing punch damage.





Very deeply marked hole-closing punch damage. This was an early repair method that is no longer considered acceptable.



This one makes the least sense. This is the motion works wheel, which carries no tension/force from the works, yet it was the most severely and deeply punched hole. This wheel should never require any bushing wear. It technically doesn't even require oiling. The only work that this gear carries out is to advance the hour hand.





There are also small punch marks on the interior on the worn sides of some pivot holes.



This is the only bushing on the movement. It was poorly made/fitted to the back side of the escape wheel.



The springs seem to be the originals, and they are good candidates for replacement. I chose to leave them in the clock for now to see if it would work as-is, but as it turns out the movement is not in top working condition. I will need to open it up again and install a few bushings as well as replace both springs. For the time being, I'm just happy that the clock is all back together.





The completed clock turned out nicely. It's interesting to note that this is considered a rosewood clock, yet the sides and the dial mask are done in mahogany veneer. This is quite common, and normally under a slightly darker finish the difference is very hard to see. Rosewood was more expensive, so it was only used on the front. Some smaller clocks are sometimes entirely rosewood veneered, so it varies.



Also note: the hour hand is the original, while the minute hand is a modern replacement.



One of the nicest features of the clock is the original tablet in mint condition. There is very minimal paint lift to some of the white, as well as several small dots of missing black (not very visible).



Two large veneer patches. About a one inch section of rosewood at the base of the curve (a nearly perfect match), and a vertical patch in the base.



These two patches are a bit more obvious, since the colour did not turn out as well as some of the other areas.



Three patches here, also a bit more visible. The colours looked great before the shellac. Luckily the rosewood has a wide variety of shades.





There are 3 or 4 patches and glue repairs on the curve here, but mostly just one of them shows (with the diagonal cut). In general it's always better to replace an entire "stripe" of veneer, but this spot was repaired with matching antique veneer, so I opted for a smaller repair. Also note the touched-up grain painting on the bezel.



Original grain painting.







The label on this clock is in excellent condition.



The back of the case bears a label to a Kingston, Ontario watchmaker. There was a pencil inscription on the right, but it is now largely gone. As far as I was able to research, this seems to indicate a repair or service date from around the 1890s. The clock dates from the early 1870s.



Full view of the backboard:



There is an inscription that reads" W. S. Duffett, Adolphustown. I was able to trace this down to a William Sealy Duffett (1837 - 1916) who passed away in Adolphustown Ontario. I wasn't able to find much more information on him other than his wife Mary Adalaide Watson, whom he married in Feb 1884. The clock seems unlikely to have been a wedding gift since the date is too late. By around 1874 Waterbury had changed their movement design to have screws on the front rather than pins.



Additionally this clock came with a note (visible at the beginning) that reads:

CAPT. ALLEN'S CLOCK
E. CATHERINE HARKNESS
5th GENERATION

I can find no relation between any captain Allen and the Duffett family, and without any indication of the captain's first name, there are a number of possibilities. There is Captain Christopher C. Allen (1846 - 1915), Captain Adam Allen (1813 - 1885), Capt John Allen (1837- 1913), and Captain Allen Mackenzie Cleghorn (d.1916), which would all conflict with the Duffett information. I imagine that if this clock belonged to a "captain Allen" it would have been sold to him after Mr. Duffett's death in 1916.

My search for E. Catherine Harkness also didn't turn up any useful results.

The clock was sold to me through an auction from collectors with the last name MacDonald, so I'm not sure how this clock might have been in any way "5th generation". The note may have been with the wrong clock?

John Birge & Co. 1848 Column & Cornice Clock - Before Photos

I've already posted the movement restoration from this clock, but lately I've been working on the restoration of the case, which has been on and off for the past year or so. At the current moment I have all of the case completely restored except for the crown moulding, which is always the most complicated part of the case to work on.

Since I'm so close to finishing the restoration on this clock, I want to take the time to post the "before photos" since I haven't done it yet, despite having owned the clock for well over a year (almost 2).

A quick warning: This post will be photo-heavy.

The most nerve wracking part of purchasing a clock like this one (very old, fragile/falling apart, and with lots of easily breakable original painted glasses) is getting it shipped to you. I've dealt with a good number of sellers on eBay, and I've learned that you just don't know how the seller will pack the clock. Even in cases where I made specific requests, often they will just do whatever they want. I've had cases where the clock had the glass protected with a masking tape X, plus a cardboard on each side, 10 layers of bubble wrap, and then double boxed, and on the extreme opposite, I've actually had one ogee clock that was mailed in a completely empty cardboard box. No wadded newspaper, no bubble wrap, no packing peanuts, NOTHING. It somehow survived the trip, but I just could NOT believe it. It's been so long that I'm no longer 100% sure which clock it was, but I'm fairly sure it was the largely empty (but rare) Charles Wilbur clock, which had no dial, no tablet, and an already cracked dial glass. Pictures and info here, if you're curious: http://www.angelfire.com/me5/clockman/charleswilbur.html

In any case, with this particular clock, most of the value for me was in the original tablets, so I was very nervous about what condition the clock would arrive in. Clocks from this period with both original tablets still intact are starting to be harder and harder to find. One thing that doesn't help matters is that a lot of these larger boxes get kicked around (or crushed) more than smaller parcels during shipping. I also had a previous disaster with the purchase of my first Birge & Fuller Column & Cornice clock (which is a whole other nightmare story of its own that I will save for another time). That clock arrived smashed to pieces, and took me a few years to restore.

Let's just say that when the clock arrived, I was already a bit nervous seeing that the box was slightly crushed...





Luckily for me, the Postal Gods were smiling down upon me that week, and the clock arrived safely in one piece.





I was a bit surprised that the clock did not arrive in slightly worse condition, because there really wasn't a ton of packing to protect it. One or two layers of thin bubble wrap, and a few scrunched-up layers of thin newspaper.

Now here are some of the better photos. I've mentioned it before, but it's worth briefly mentioning again: I've been having problems over the past year with my digital camera (difficulty focusing), and I will need a new one soon. Most of these photos turned out nicely, but several turned out blurry, and I had to sharpen the crap out of them in Photoshop.

One of the first problems you'll note with the case is that the columns are insanely crooked. They also appear to have been glued this way for a long time.



This case has some particularly nice cuts of mahogany veneer.





This centre tablet is truly magnificent. It is painted entirely freehand, and I have not seen another similar one on any other Birge clock of the period (and I've seen close to 100). There are a few scratches to the paint, and a tiny bit of lifting in the centre of a few flowers, but aside from that, the tablet has survived in extremely good condition.



I was lucky enough to secure the purchase of the original dial with the clock. If you will recall from the 2014 post regarding this clock (here), I purchased it from a rather unscrupulous seller who prefers to make money from these fine clocks by parting them out into multiple separate auctions. The dial was not marked as being the dial for this clock, but rather just as a "wooden works dial". I knew from past research what Birge dials looked like (and what to look for), and I was 95% sure that this was the dial that went with this clock. Clues for me were the size, the dotted minutes, the style of the numerals, and the circular centre opening. The most important detail, however, is the painted corner spandrels. Birge & Fuller had some of the nicest and most finely detailed floral corners, when compared with similar dials of the same period. If I were to be a bit more specific, I'd say that the flowers were usually composed of many more brush strokes/petals and with more detailed leaves than on other dials. The flowers on this specific dial, however, were a bit plainer than I am used to seeing, and they almost had an early "Seth Thomas" style to them (if you've looked closely at a lot of dials you might see what I mean by this). The quality of the dials was the best in the earliest examples (early 1840s) and gradually became plainer and simpler towards the 1850s. In the end I was correct, and the dial is unmistakably original to this clock. I will try to find a salvaged grommet to replace the missing one (none of the new ones offered match the shape or the width).





For comparison (and education), I've assembled this collage of early Birge dials (wooden dials prior to Birge & Peck). You'll note that the last John Birge dial is an exact match, except for the colour difference (light blue as opposed to pink on mine). Another interesting thing to note from this collage is that only ONE dial has the original hands. It is the third dial. All the others are incorrect replacements. The first dial on the list is from my 1845-47 Birge & Fuller Column & Cornice clock. You may also note that the first 4 dials, as well as the 6th one have identical leaf patterns, with only a difference in the style of the flowers. Some dials also feature single rings, or double rings.



Continuing with the case photos, you can see that the crown has been carved and sanded down in some corners during previous "restorations". This will be difficult to repair.





There's a better photo of this detail farther down. Both columns should be touching the inside corners.





The bottom tablet is equally beautiful, but it has a bit more paint loss than the centre tablet. This tablet is a combination of stenciled and freehand decorations. The stenciled portion of the design has a segmented circle, pointed triangles, and two toothed inner circles at the centre (done in silver bronzing powder). The design is then filled-in with shaded paints in blue, cream, and beige. The whole pattern is then decorated with a small freehand lace border, and corner florets. A lot of the backing "frosted" paint is missing, and there are several small scratches overall, but the tablet is in great shape.



This section of the crown moulding was NOT pictured in the listing photos (big surprise).





Another unfortunate bit of damage that wasn't visible in the listing were two broken chunks to the two corners of the columns. The top board is also split in several places.







Evidence of prior repairs to the crown include several wire nails (everywhere), and all sorts of putty filler (including over the screw holes).



Replaced (poorly fitted and poorly shaped) glue block.



One of several inscriptions. This reads: "Cleaned by R. S. Field". It originally took me some effort to decipher because the C and l almost form one fancy letter "C". I originally saw this as "Camd".



Another inscription. This one reads: "E. Erskine, Eldon Iowa, June 1 88" More info on this later.





One of the small drawbacks to this clock is that the label is only partial. Luckily "John Birge & Co" is still clearly visible. What's missing, however, is the Elihu Geer printer's name and address at the very bottom. Elihu Geer was the printer for the Birge labels, but his address on State Street (Hartford CT) changed almost annually, and the address would have been nice to see for research purposes.





I'm not sure what this mark is from, but I wasn't able to remove it with gentle cleaning. It may be a candle burn.



The movement was in terrible condition. It is a Joseph Ives "Roller Pinion" 8 day weight driven movement. All of these Ives movements feature rolling pinions in all the lantern pinions. These usually show nearly no wear after nearly 200 years of use. The wheels also have unusually shaped squared teeth. The "plates" are made up from strips (or straps) of brass which are riveted together. Back then brass was still quite expensive, and this was an easy way to build plates. Clockmakers know these as "strap brass movements". You can see the complete rehabilitation and restoration of the movement in my previous post here: http://jcclocks.blogspot.ca/2016/01/john-birge-co-movement-restoration.html



The gong was completely mangled. It took a lot of effort to straighten it out again (as much as possible). It doesn't look all that bad in this photo, but it is warped up, down, back up again, and also kinked in several places.



Lovely punch marks around the pivot holes (not repairable), and globs of solder everywhere.









The bottoms on almost all these early clocks tend to be in poor (chipped) shape. This one is no exception.



The end-grain veneers are especially prone to damage (because of the weaker glue bond). There are diagonal cracks through the base, and 2 or 3 cracks in the case side. Also note the missing chunk of wood at the back corner.





Proof that not all of these early clocks had perfect and clear grain/veneer. This clock has a smallish knot on the left side.