Highly Unusual Vienna Clock - Part 2

As you may have noticed in Part 1, the clock was in somewhat shabby condition, with a large chunk of the crown broken off (and missing) in the top left, as well as some breaks to the bottom bracket and a few veneer issues.



Other missing pieces include all the finials (x5) and two top corner blocks (there were square shadows to each side of the centre crest).

The hardest part to replicate was the upper crown moulding piece, but I was able to get a close-enough shape with a few passes of a cove router bit and some saw cuts. The rest was careful sanding. For the bottom moulding, I chose to replace it with a single rectangular piece, rather than rebuild it in 3 sections like it was.



The veneer on the bottom bracket had some damage to both sides. Sadly my camera has been having a hard time lately (it needs to be replaced), so I did not get many good photos of the repairs. This was the worst side. Most of the back edge was badly chipped, so I replaced a full strip. This was difficult to cut and glue. I had to pre-bend the veneer around two forms to shape it into an "S" before I could glue it. The large chip at the top was just puttied. A veneer repair there would have been difficult and unsightly. It was either putty, or remove another inch-wide strip of veneer down the length of the bracket. This is so low on the clock that the repair isn't that visible.





This was followed by a bit more sanding, some dark stain, and a bit of diluted paint to blend the harsh line. I used orange shellac to varnish the area and blend it into the rest of the original shellac. None of the photos turned out so I may try to take new ones later.

After more touch-ups, small chip repairs, a bit of black paint and shellac, this is the finished case:





The clock still has the original old wavy glass with several imperfections.



The clock originally had wall stabilizers, but they were missing, so I installed a sew set. The finials are still being planned/chosen and they'll be shown in Part 3 once they're installed.







For the two little top blocks, I had to make an educated guess as to what they should look like. As I mentioned earlier, there were two square shadows, and a faint circle outline in the centre of the squares indicating finials. I made the blocks from pine and veneered them in some salvaged antique walnut veneer. The ebonized tops were made to match the bottom bracket detail.





You can sort of see the typical German/Vienna case construction detail of the "lock joint" at each corner of the main box.



All it needs now are the finials.

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.

Longcase Update

Slow progress is still progress. Since the last time I posted, I've repaired the feet and stained them (they still need shellac), and made a few additional repairs to the hood, including the right hand cove moulding, and patching the large chipped hole. I also made and fitted the two rear slats (they aren't glued in place yet).

Here you can see a simple card stock template that I made for the pattern of the ogee feet. I flattened-out the broken rear feet sections with the belt sander, and prepped some new blanks, which were cut to the correct shape before being attached (you can see both blanks ready for installation).



Right foot:



Left foot (this one may need a bit more stain):



Here are the patch pieces glued onto both ends of the swan neck moulding.





Left side "mini cove" patch.



Here you can see the mostly finished right side. It doesn't look too fantastic in this photo because it's just inches away from a strong light, and it also needs several coats of shellac.



More soon (ish).

Catching Up

I won't even pretend that I haven't been neglecting this blog. For a few months I've been procrastinating about working on the Dalrn longcase, but I've gotten back to it in the past few weeks. Every few days, I've been working on it for about 30 min to over an hour.

This is a "catch up" post from the past several months (some of these photos go back to March).

I started working on the swan neck crest by first dis-assembling the improperly glued (misaligned) pieces, and scraping off most of the glue. It seems as though this clock was damaged a fairly long time ago, since most of the repairs were done with hide glue.



Several nail holes and small cracks were filled on the left side.





This is a dry fit showing the proper alignment of the broken pieces. You can faintly see where they had previously been glued (hazy line about 1/8" to the left).



Paint touch-ups to the filled/puttied bits.





Another nasty discovery was made. I found that the canon pinion that carries the hour wheel was badly broken (the repair is shown farther down).



Several of the dial feet that hold the sub-plate in place were broken.



These could not be repaired mechanically (which would involve heavy hammer blows to the front of the dial) so instead, I had to resort to a modern fix: JB Weld. I have found that this product, when properly used, can be a very good repair to fragile, or difficult pieces. Once it's cured, it's incredibly strong.



New replacement dial grommets were found, and test-fitted.





The grommets were then stripped of any finish, and antiqued. My method involved heat, and spray paint, but there are dozens of methods for artificially aging brass.



The repair to the hour wheel bridge was tedious, and difficult. At first, I tried to resolder the break, and this proved unsuccessful after at least 3 attempts (too small of a contact surface.

To fix this properly, I had to grind down the pipe slightly until the end was square, and then add a slight taper to it (like sharpening a pencil). On the bridge, I reversed the taper, creating a bit of a cone into the hole. This created a nice snug joint, and allowed for a good surface for the solder to flow into the joint. In the end, I only lost a tiny bit of the original length of the pipe (less than 1/16"), and the pipe's length is not critical.

This was the repair after soldering, but before cleaning and polishing.



Dial feet after curing (and before painting over the grey).









Antiqued grommets installed. I'm quite happy with the finished look. They look as though they've always been there.



The dial was then patched, painted, and given a light coat of clear paste wax. I prefer to keep just a few of my "secrets" to myself, and my method for dial restoration is one of them. The colour matching is not 100% perfect, but it's as close as I could get.



Fast forward a few months, and now we're back to a few weeks ago. I started to work on repairing the extensively damaged hood. This is a replaced section of moulding. I used a rectangular section of mahogany, and hand-carved the cove moulding.





I also started to repair the main case. As you can see, a board was used as a patch for two broken rear feet. This board was removed, and I trimmed both feet square/flat to prep them for new mahogany patch pieces.



Last time on the blog, I showed the repair of the Samuel Terry wooden works clock, but I also repaired the top on the Boardman & Wells (shown below), the broken finial tip on the MB Vienna, and the broken door knob on my Seth Thomas Sonora.

The top on the Boardman & Wells suffered the same fate as the top on the Samuel Terry: snapped off during the move to the house in 2010. An easy fix. You can also see one side of the hood in the clamps.





Some of the hood's crest pieces, and the swan neck crest (mostly repaired).



The large moulding over the base of the clock case was reattached.



This was done this weekend. If you will recall, the hood was missing the right hand side piece from the dial mask. This piece was recreated by using 2 very thin pieces of clear pine. The original was probably one piece, but it's hard to tell, and it was easier to fabricate accurately in 2 pieces.

This piece was actually quite complicated to make.



The piece has two notched teeth on the ends that slot into the top/bottom pieces. I goofed on my initial pattern, so these two teeth had to be added separately.



The piece was then hand carved to match the bevel edge around the rest, and stained/antiqued to match the rest of the dial mask. I'm quite happy with the results. I used a mix of two gel stains, followed by a diluted acrylic paint "wash" over the top. It's a near perfect match.



Left hand moulding reattached.



As a side note: I may have done "too much of a good job" as I discovered that the door no longer fits, and I'll need to carefully shave down a small section to make it work smoothly again.