Finishing-up The W. Allan Longcase

Alright, I've been dragging my feet when it comes to this particular blog, because I don't currently have much feedback on it. The beautiful Scottish longcase clock that I had been working on since February (2013) is finally finished, and set-up in the clients' home. I managed to have everything done and ready for them just before Christmas (about a week before).

In the last post, I discussed the repairs to the feet, and the beginnings of the complex repairs to the corner mouldings of the swan neck crest.

One of the two blocks that I had glued into place was too short, and I had to remove it, and re-install a larger piece of mahogany.

I also really didn't like how this entire corner had turned out:



So I removed all the varnish, re-puttied it, and block sanded it completely smooth. New stain, and toned lacquers were added instead of the hand-brushed varnishes, which gave a far superior finish. But before I get to that, I first made the columns.

I wasn't really sure if my client wanted to spend extra money to cover the costs of the column tops/bottoms, but I decided to go ahead and order them regardless, since the clock hood simply couldn't go without the columns.

Column tops and bottoms for this style of "plain" post columns (based on photos and research) use the same parts for the top and bottom pieces. The originals on this clock were 1" square, but the closest available equivalents were 1 1/8" square with a 3/4" column.

I ordered these through Timesavers, and I was really impressed with the quality. They aren't cheap, but they are exceedingly well made.







Rather than hand-turn plain blank columns, I simply used 3/4" hardwood dowels. I picked one that was as clear and straight as possible, and stained it a very deep mahogany brown. Additional toned varnish was added to get a near-perfect colour match. In this photo, they only have the stain applied.



The brass column tops and bases came without mounting holes, so I needed to drill a pait of very small holes into them to accept some tiny steel finishing nails (smaller than 1/16").

Here you can see the re-sanded cornice, and the finished (installed) columns.









Before I glued the swan neck moulding in place, I needed to attach a reinforcing brace behind the break, patch the chipped chunks on either side of the break, and rough carve the corner patches.



The original crest used 3 small square glue blocks, but I decided to use 5 triangular ones. These were patinated (with a vinegar and iron solution) before installation, then they were stained/painted to match.





After the swan neck crest assembly was glued back to the hood with hide glue, and plenty of clamps (and left to dry overnight), the mahogany patches were hand carved, sanded, and cracks/small gaps puttied.

Note the large patched section of the cornice above the column, which is now nearly invisible.







Stain, varnish, and coloured lacquer were used to blend-in the repairs.









The next part (no photos) was to re-fit the hood door. The hood was reglued solidly as close to "new" as you could expect, however, the hood door had slowly expanded (slightly) in the joints, meaning that it no longer fit into the original opening.

Since the door had the original puttied glass in place, I couldn't take it apart to re-clamp it, and I couldn't throw it on the table saw either, because the vibrations could potentially shatter the glass.

To trim down the door, I had to do it carefully by hand using a hand plane, and a bit of sand paper. In the process, I discovered that the door appears to be made from Cherry, which I thought was incredibly unusual.

With the door carefully re-installed, and waxed on all sides to prevent rubbing at the top and bottom, I turned my attention to the movement.

As you may recall, most of the damaged components were already repaired, and I just had to clean the movement. You can see how dirty and dusty it was, as well as some of my cleaning routine, which involves keeping the individual levers and gears separate and labelled for easier reassembly.



A lot of clockmakers chose to put different artistic twists on common pieces such as this beautifully detailed lifting piece (which raises the hammer for striking the bell):



As well as these two gracefully curved pieces (the rack hook and rack):



The movement has a few previous repairs, and I found this one on the centre wheel. It's a very ugly repair (for a broken leaf pinion) but it's very solid, so I left it as-is. I could have improved the repair but it wasn't worth spending one or two hours on it for a minimal aesthetic improvement.



Another simple repair that I needed to do was to replace the broken pin on the calendar wheel. This pin advances the calendar hand on the dial by one tooth every 24 hours to indicate the date.



Here are two photos of the finished/cleaned movement on the original (repaired) seatboard. You may note two (less than perfect) existing repairs to the rack tail (solder) and the rebuilt gathering pallet. You may also see that the bell stand now has 2 nuts on it. This is because the threads on the bell stand are completely worn down at the base.





Lastly, here you can see the back of the finished hood repairs. All the glue blocks and patched sections have been antiqued to match the back and top of the case.



The next (and final) post about the Allan longcase clock will show the photos of the finished clock.

Quickie Tutorial - Wax-Filling

Wax-filled engravings can greatly enhance the look of clock components. Although this is not something that you use very often, it's quite a simple process, and it's very easy to do. This is not usually a skill that's practised or used by beginners, but at the same time, it is not an advanced skill to learn. Anyone can learn this technique.

For this tutorial, I will be showing wax-filling on a simple brass beat plate. This is not a finely engraved example, but rather a cheaply mass-produced one that is easily available for a few dollars.

The tools needed for wax-filling are simple and inexpensive. You will need:

- Alcohol Lamp
- Alcohol (Denatured/Ethanol/Methyl Hydrate)
- A burn-in knife (or an artist's trowel)
- Dial "wax"
- Various sanding and polishing sundries



Before we begin, a few additional notes:

Alcohol Lamp: These lamps are easily found from clock parts suppliers, and are equally easy to find on eBay. I have this one (above, which can sit at different angles) as well as 2 other antique ones (with flat bases). They will often have a wick-cap because the alcohol will evaporate fairly easily from the lamp. If you're not planning to use the lamp again, empty the alcohol back into your container, otherwise it will be gone by the next time you need the lamp again.

The reason for using alcohol in these lamps (rather than oil or kerosene) is that the alcohol will give a clean flame that will not leave ugly black soot or oil residue on the pieces you're heating. It also burns with a blue flame that produces a lot of heat, but nearly no visible light (so you can stare directly at what you're working on, without blinding your eyeballs).

Knife: No particular knife is essential. You can use no knife, and simply rub the dial wax onto the heated piece to be filled, but the advantage of using a thin, flexible knife is that you can "squeegee-off" a lot of the excess wax, which (as you will see later) is difficult to remove in the finishing stage. The particular knife that I use is a dollar store item, but art supply dealers, clock parts suppliers, and specialty woodworking supply houses also carry them.

Dial "wax": The dial wax is actually not a wax at all. It is a deeply coloured shellac or lacquer product, and it is sold in sticks. For the purposes of this tutorial I'll simply refer to the product as a wax. Depending where you buy it, it may be called by different names (shellac stick, lacquer sticks, dial wax, dial shellac, etc), but it will always appear as a shiny fragile black stick. Clock parts dealers carry these, but be aware that you can also find them cheaper from woodworking suppliers. The place where I bought mine (Lee Valley Tools) sells the shellac sticks in about a dozen different colours, including clear and amber colours, which could be used for case repairs. I have also seen some rare and unusual engraved clock dials that used red or blue as an accent. The sticks generally cost around 5$ each.

General Safety Note:
When working with fire, be sure to work safely. Do not overfill the lamp, make sure to work on a clean, safe work area, and as a general safety measure, know where the fire extinguisher, first aid, and other such items are in your home, should you need them.

With that out of the way, let's get started. You will want to make sure that your engraved item is clean. I would not advise to highly polish and scour it in this case. Simply wash it and make sure there are no traces of oils or dirt on it.



When filling the engravings, you have several techniques that you can use, and they will depend strongly on your preferences. In my case, I like to heat the knife, and melt a small blob of the wax onto the tip. To help the wax "grab" the metal better, I also gently heat the piece that is being filled (use not-marring pliers). The rest is just a series of back and forth actions, heating the piece, the spatula, trowelling, heating, etc.

Note: Do not overheat the knife or the piece being filled. If you overheat the piece, you will notice that the wax gets too liquid and it will start to flow out from the engravings. If this happens, simply remove it from the heat, wait for it to cool slightly, and redistribute the wax. You need to hit just the right balance. If the wax is too cool, it will stick everywhere like honey.

You want to make sure all the grooves of your design are filled, but you also want to try to keep as little wax on the rest of the surface as possible. If you can completely avoid large flat areas, DO SO. On a very small item like this, it was easier to just cover everything thinly. On a large item like a dial, you want to do just the numerals and divisions.



Once your filled piece has cooled (don't put it under cold water as this could crack the wax), you can start the finishing process.

This is the only difficult part of the whole process. The excess surface wax must be carefully sanded. It will not want to come off easily, but have patience with it. You can use a combination of whatever abrasives you like, including steel wool, wet-dry sand paper, wet-sanding, etc. Try to use a sanding block to get a nice flat surface, and avoid coarse grits that could deeply scratch your finish surface. You will want to avoid any kind of power tool or wire wheels, as these will tend to pull the wax out of the engravings, or overheat/melt the wax from friction.

Once all the excess wax is removed, you can go over the surface in one direction. In the case of this beat scale, a "side-to-side" direction along the length of the piece worked fine. If you're working on a longcase clock dial, however, you will want to build yourself a circular sanding pad/platform. More on that in the future (or you can search the web for others' setups/tutorials for this).

Finish with a brass polish to buff the surface of the metal and the wax.





And that's it! This entire process took me less than 10 minutes (start to finish). It actually took 10x longer to edit and write this post than to actually do the wax filling. If you are after a silvered surface instead, you would do it at this point (more on this in a future tutorial), and follow with a clear spray lacquer. This finished beat scale is being left "natural" to tarnish/patina. You will note that the black shows up nicely with the addition of a clear lacquer.