Month-Going Longcase Clock Project Part 5 - Custom Longcase Hands

Cutting longcase clock hands always seems to be a popular subject. Everyone loves to see raw steel turned into beautifully cut curlicues and then turned a beautiful blue-black.

This is one of those "essential skills" that most clockmakers should learn, but that very few do. There are a few reasons for this. Normally it's a time/money issue. Hand cutting and filing steel longcase hands is a time consuming project, and most clockmakers would prefer to buy laser cut or mass produced replacements rather than spend the time and effort on custom hands. It's also expensive for the clients. Who wants to spend 100$ or more on such small parts? Then again, depending on the clock, you wouldn't want precision-cut copies. When you get into rare early pieces, the value of the clock justifies the price for custom work.

For someone like me, I do this work for fun, so I spend whatever amount of time is needed for the work I'm doing (because it's for me). That said, I will happily cut hands for a client so long as I'm adequately compensated for the work.

Anyhow, I think I'm starting to ramble, so on with it.

Materials Needed for Longcase Hands:

- 1/16" thick steel with a carbon content for bluing (test the steel if needed as not all steel will blue nicely) steel must also be annealed for easy cutting
- Paper pattern
- Saw blades*
- Sand paper and polishes

Tools:

- Jeweler's saw
- Files
- Alcohol burner or small torch
- A bluing tray filled with brass shavings, OR a cast iron skilled filled with fine sand, OR a thick brass plate
- Small vise
- Saw support (a wooden plank with a V sawn on the end)

Step 1: Pattern

Choosing the correct pattern is probably going to be the most important, and the most difficult part of the entire process. If you already know the exact pattern that you need, then give yourself a little pat on the back, and count yourself lucky. If you DON'T know which pattern to use, this is where you will have to do your research.

When I last talked at length about clock hands, it was on the mirror clock project, here: http://jcclocks.blogspot.ca/2015/06/mirror-clock-project-part-7-custom-cut.html. All the same points still apply when dealing with longcase clocks. The wrong hands can seriously affect the overall look and feel of the dial and of the clock. Hands for the period I'm copying (1680s, but with more of a 1740s chapter ring) vary WIDELY in style, shape, and size. It's also important to note that certain style hands look better on certain style dials. There is a huge variety of early square brass dials. Some have large ringed winding holes, wide or narrow chapter rings, centre engraving, seconds bits, etc. Everything needs to be taken into account.

It's also partially left to personal taste. I find that a fair number of clock hands are "ugly" or disproportioned in one way or another. The hour hand may be far too large compared to the hour hand, or I find a certain shape too pointy, too ornate, too plain, etc. Anyhow, after probably a month of debating, I narrowed it down to a particular pair of hands that I found on three similar clocks.

John Knibb London, Circa 1685


Joseph Knibb Month Duration Longcase with Roman Striking, Circa 1685


The third clock (not pictured) is another Joseph Knibb ebony longcase, month duration with Roman striking, and also circa 1685. This one was sold in the "Masterpieces From The Time Museum" sale back in 2004. The case is similar to what I want to build (caddy top, 3 finials, ebony case with no trunk door lenticle, but this one has flat Doric hood columns and I want Barley Twist ones).

The pattern was traced freehand on paper based on the dimensions I needed for my dial.



Step 2: Sawing

The rest isn't rocket science. You saw the hands with a jeweler's saw. All the interior openings have to be cut with a pilot hole to start. I find it easiest to start with the openings. Try to stay outside the lines.



Here you can see my cutting support block. The end has a sort of keyhole shaped opening.





I have yet to find a great way to avoid breaking lots of blades. The only advice I can give is to never push against the blade. Let the blade do the work, and turn corners slowly. You can lubricate the blades with wax or oil, but this may ruin your paper template. The blades also become dull from use as you're cutting. *As a general rule, you need 3 teeth for the thickness of material you're cutting. The thinner the material, the more teeth you need. I believe it's 48 teeth per inch for 1/16 thick stock, but I found that slightly finer blades cut a bit more easily. Experiment and see what works. Luckily jeweler's saw blades are very inexpensive. All these broken blades probably cost about 1-2$ for the lot.



Now, no matter how careful you think you're cutting, the results will probably look something like this:



It's not great, but everything else can be cleaned up with files.

Here is the minute hand. Note that I'm using the other end of my saw support block (which has a narrower key slot).



Here are both rough cut hand blanks:



Step 3: Filing

It's hard to explain filing. I think it's pretty self explanatory. Remove bumps, clean up the lines and shapes, thin areas as needed, and then add any necessary "carved" areas such as leaf grooves, decorative ribbing, etc. Use any file size or shape that's convenient. I used maybe a dozen different ones.





I gave them a fairly smooth polish, but I also didn't go too crazy trying to get beautiful perfect edges. I also didn't completely remove some of the steel's texture from the annealing process. I want them to look 200 years old.



Step 4: Bluing

Bluing hands (or other small steel parts) can be a tricky process. The important part is even heat distribution. There are several ways you can blue hands, and some are easier than others. The traditional method is to heat them in a small metal tray filled with brass shavings. This is done over a flame (usually a blue alcohol flame). Alternatively, you can also use a thick piece of brass, and heat the hands slowly (do one at a time). You can also blue hands very slowly in a bed of hot sand. This is how I blued these hands. I used an old cast iron skillet with fine white sand. This method is very slow, but you have the best chance of success.

If you overheat the steel, you will pass blue and go back to straw. If you overheat the tips of the hands, the colour won't be even. If you screw up, just re-polish the whole hand back to bright steel and try again.

The hands are then quenched in oil or water.

If you want more of a black-blue, and you don't want to mess with heat, you can use gun blue. If you have a particularly odd blend of steel that won't blue correctly or evenly, gun blue can also save you. This was the case for a hand I made several years ago.







Apparently I still had not polished the dial plate at this point. I will have to take more photos later.

Scottish Longcase Clock - Repairing a Calendar Hand

This was a longcase clock that I cleaned and repaired for a client. The clock had several small problems, and it badly needed cleaning, but I wanted to show how I repaired the calendar hand. I find that a fair number of clockmakers can do simple hand repairs like this, while a lot don't. There is nothing really too difficult about these repairs, but you do need a bit of patience and a small bit of artistic talent to do a nice filing job that isn't too lumpy or crooked.

As received, the clock had the original second hand, and part of the calendar hand (the centre) with both ends poorly patched-in. The hour and minute hand are later replacements.

Before. This shows the original second hand at the top, the current calendar hand (as received, with ugly patches on both ends) and some newly cut pieces of brass for the repair. All I did was find brass sheet that was the same thickness (or close) and then trace it and cut the pattern using a jeweler's saw.



The second step is to de-solder and clean up the existing hand. If this hand did not have a tiny threaded centre, plus some decorative punch work, then I could have cut an entirely new hand, but the chances of matching the old threading are slim to none. Once the hand is ready, the new patch pieces get trimmed to fit, filed to size, and then soldered in place with two small patch pieces on the back.





I just used regular solder. There is no real need to use silver solder here.

I did not try to copy the punched design on the repaired section, but I did antique the brass to make everything blend nicely together.



Also note that the original hand is quite roughly cut, so you can get away with quite a bit of small mistakes.







I'm proud to say that the client was very happy with the repair.

PS: the taper pin in the two photos above was just a temporary one. I don't leave them that long, and the finished one was steel, not brass.

Mirror Clock Project Part 7 - Custom Cut Hands

In the same way that incorrect hardware can spoil the look of a cabinet or dresser, the same can apply to the hands of a clock. When it comes to clock dials and hands, many people have their own preferences, or sometimes none at all. I have often seen highly skilled clockmakers who will make their own beautiful brass movements, but then fit a cheap dial and mass produced hands onto it.

Whenever I build furniture or cabinetry, I will often agonize over the choice of hardware, since it can really make a big impact, and even change the entire style of the piece. Even something as simple as a knob can make a difference. A small wood knob looks charming, a large wood knob looks very old fashioned (1800s), while a glass knob can give a 1920s feel.

When it came to picking out the hands for my mirror clock, I had several options to choose from. Most hands in this period were fairly simple, and even crude. The main styles include shapes such as arrows or pointers, with several other variations. Below are just a few of the popular shapes that can be found on New Hampshire Mirror Clocks. Some are easily recognizable (such as the Banjo style arrows, and the Moon hands) while the others have no specific names, and were not used or seen again after the 1840s. I have given names to some of them, but they are definitely not official names.



Starting from the upper left: "Willard Swords", Half Moon, Moon. Bottom row: Banjo (Arrows), Crosses, and "Cross and Pointer" (I suspect that the minute hand on this one is a later replacement).

Within those styles are also several different proportions. The cross hands are very popular on mirror clocks, and they range from wide with 3 square tips, to narrow with pointed tips, etc.

I was originally going to choose the "Cross and Pointer" hands but I only found one or two examples of these, and I decided to go with two crosses instead. The hand shapes were hand-drawn to exact size on paper, then transferred (spray-glued) to some steel stock. The hands were cut to rough shape using a jeweler's saw, and then cleaned-up with files.

Here you can see the cut and roughly filed hands (rough edges on the top and bottom).



Smoothed out, cleaned, and ready for heat treating and finishing.



The hour hand was fitted with a pipe, the hands were heat-treated (for strength), and then a light coat of flat black paint was applied. I could have blued the hands, but I preferred a black painted finish for this clock.



Here are the completed hands fitted and mounted to the clock. I am exceptionally happy with my decision to choose the Crosses, and with how the hands turned out. All that is left now is the mirror.