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).

Brewster & Ingrahams Beehive Clock

Here is a gift from a wonderful internet friend of mine.



This is a beautiful 8 day brass-spring beehive clock made by Brewster & Ingrahams. The clock retains the original finish, and everything else on it apart from the tablet is original.

Sadly, the strike spring has shattered (possibly during transport), and these are irreplaceable.

I was told that this clock is rather rare because B&I only made 8 day brass-spring clocks for about 4 years (1837-1843).





I am excited to get this clock cleaned and running, but I will need to find out what the equivalent steel spring replacement should be, and order one, before I do that. In the meantime the clock sits just to my right in the computer room. I have found a Terry key that fits the original door "lock" (really just a latch) perfectly, and added a tassel to it.