I bought this Forestville 8 day ogee shelf clock at a clock show last week. I love these old American weight-driven shelf clocks, and hope to have time to fix this one up someday. What attracted me to the clock is the William B. Fenn reverse painted tablet in the door. It has the saying “By Industry We Thrive” and a beehive with flowers around it. Reference 3 shows the stencil used to paint the saying, and also shows a stencil with the behive, flowers, and the borders.

The case has curved veneer on the outside front edge and the door, and is sometimes referred to as an OOG case. The case is 30 inches tall and 16 3/4 inches wide. The dial is painted wood, and the minute hand is 3 1/2 inches long (center to tip).

The bottom of the label says J. C. brown, S. B. Smith and C. Goodrich at bottom, dating it to 1846 – 1847. At the very bottom is . . . Press of Elihu Geer, State Street, Hartford. It doesn’t give a street address (such as 26 or 1) which might have narrowed the date down further.

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The movement looks rough, but should clean up well. It is Forestville’s lyre 8-day movement, type 2.12 from the chart on pp. 72 – 73 of reference 1.

It looks like a mouse lived in the clock for a while! The right pulley hole has been enlarged, the pulley is gone, the top of the right movement mounting rail has been chewed away, and the door has been chewed away inside below the lower glass.

For historical information on Forestville clocks, see reference 1. For an updated chart of the chronology of J. C. Brown’s clock companies, see reference 2, page 64. The chart gives the names of the principals of the various companies, allowing the date of the clock to be narrowed down based on the names at the bottom of the label. An earlier version of the chart appears in reference 1, as well as in the June 1987 NAWCC Bulletin. It was complied by H. Bryan Rogers.

References

1) Jonathan Clark Brown and the Forestville Manufacturing Company, Kenneth D. Roberts and Snowden Taylor, Ph. D., Ken Roberts publishing Co., Fitzwilliam, NH 03447, 1988, ISBN 0-913602-64-7.

2) Forestville Clockmakers, Kenneth D. Roberts and Snowden Taylor, Ph. D., Ken Roberts publishing Co., Fitzwilliam, NH 03447, 1992, ISBN 0-913602-67-1, page 64.

3) Clock Decorating Stencils of Mid-19th Century Connecticut, American Clock and Watch Museum, Bristol, Connecticut, 1984, ISBN 0-930446-17-4.

Related posts:

1. A New Glass Tablet for My Early Seth Thomas Ogee Clock

I recently repaired this Schatz cuckoo clock. It has the KU50 movement, and the case is the bird and leaf style with light color shaded finish. See my previous post, Four Schatz Cuckoo Clocks, for some other case styles. The top piece of the case isn’t shown in the photos.

Dimensions: Height (no top) 11 1/4 inches, width 8 1/16 inches, dial diameter (black part) 2 7/8 inches.

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Repair job 5571. I polished the pivots and installed 15 bushings.

Related posts:

1. Four Schatz Cuckoo Clocks
2. Schatz Standard 400 Day Clock with Cream Color Painted Finish.
3. Schatz Black/Cream Color 400 Day Clock, 1954
4. Schatz 8 Day Cuckoo Clock
5. 1950′s Regula Cuckoo Clock Movement

I recently repaired this Schatz 1000 day clock. It is dated 10 56 (October 1956) on the rear of the movement.

This clock has its original instruction sheet, with both English and German instructions

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Repair job 5559.

Related posts:

1. Schatz Standard No Name 400 Day Clock, ca. 1949, with Instructions
2. Instructions for Japanese Quartz Chime Clock Movement Model MT-13005
3. Schatz 1000 Day Clock Made in March 1956
4. A 1954 Schatz 1000 Day Clock
5. Schatz 1000 Day Clock, 1954, Job 5167

Seth Thomas Sons & Co. was a division of the Seth Thomas Clock Co. from 1865 to 1879. Their figural clocks such as this one have a round time and strike movement loosely modeled after the round French clock movements. They are very good runners, but have a problem with the gear teeth bending too easily. I first repaired this clock over 10 years ago, and had to straighten some bent time mainspring barrel teeth about 7 years ago and again this month. Also there were 3 bent teeth on the strike second wheel, and the time ratchet gear has needed replacing twice.

The case is  17 3/8 inches tall and 13 inches wide. The dial’s minute track is 2 31/32 inches outside diameter.

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Repair job 5550.

Related posts:

1. Seth Thomas Round Top Mantel Clock
2. Seth Thomas “Plymouth” Tambour Mantel Clock
3. Seth Thomas Tambour Mantel Clock
4. Seth Thomas Mahogany Adamantine Mantel Clock
5. Plymouth (by Seth Thomas) 1940s Mantel Clock

This German chiming wall clock was made about the 1950s or 1960s. There is no maker’s name on the dial or the movement. The back of the movement is labeled:

Western Germany

35

The trapezoidal case is 19 3/4 inches tall and 12 5/8 inches wide. The dial’s minute track is 6 3/4 inches.

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Repair job 5557. I polished the pivots and installed 6 bushings. The chime mainspring broke as I was winding it in the mainspring winder. I’m glad it broke then, instead of while in the clock (which may have damaged some gear teeth). The chime mainspring is unusually long (about 70 inches) and is 25.9 mm wide and 0.015 inch thick. I couldn’t locate a replacement in my parts catalogs, so I repaired the inner end of the spring (it had broken about 5 inches from the inner end). The break was caused by the barrel arbor hook being too long, causing stress on the spring when fully wound. I shortened all 3 arbor hooks to reduce the chances of future mainspring breakage.

The amount of hammer lift is adjustable by rotating the lower right movement pillar. When first set up, the strike stalled after 7 days. The hammers lifted 7/8 inch during chiming and 1 inch duriing striking. I reduced the lift to 9/16 inch for chiming and 11/16 inch for striking.

Related posts:

1. German Wall (Box) Clock
2. Hamburg-American German Time and Strike Wall Clock
3. Kienzle Box (Wall) Clock
4. What to do when all the chime notes sound “thunky”
5. Hansen Wall Clock, Made in Princeton, Indiana

It is common to use a tapered pin to secure the hands on American antique clocks. Seth Thomas, however, originally used a straight pin with a pointed end to secure the hands on many of their clocks. Here are photos of the original pins, washers and hands to a Seth Thomas Adamantine mantel clock made in 1902.

The pin is 1.3 milimeter diameter steel wire with one pointed end, 9.5 mm long. It has 2 (sometimes 3) convex steel washers with square holes, 8.15 mm diameter, .3 mm thick, domed to 1.1 mm high.

Most antique clocks don’t have their original hand retaining pin, but I seen many Seth Thomas clocks over the years with pins and washers like those shown here.

Related posts:

1. Mainsprings for Seth Thomas Queen Anne, Time and Strike, with Second Hand
2. Seth Thomas Octagon Top Shelf Clock, 1860s.
3. Two Seth Thomas “Plymouth” Tambour Mantel Clocks, 1938 and 1945
4. Plymouth (by Seth Thomas) 1940s Mantel Clock
5. Seth Thomas Cottage Clock, Late Model

My customer sent this movement to be repaired, because the clock fell off the wall, bending the center arbor and causing 2 gears to come out of the movement plates.

The movement has the nice thin original Seth Thomas mainsprings.

Time Mainspring: 11/16 inch wide by 0.0165 inch thick.

Strike Mainspring: 11/16 inch wide by 0.0154 inch thick.

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Repair job 5539. I polished the pivots, rebuilt the pinion on the third strike gear, and installed 10 bushings. The movement might not be original to this case (the mounting feet are bent way back in an attempt to move the movement forward in the case).

Related posts:

1. Seth Thomas Cottage Clock with 8-Day Lyre Movement
2. Ansonia Round Drop Wall Clock
3. Ansonia Iron Case Mantel Clock with Small Round Movement
4. Seth Thomas Round Top Mantel Clock
5. Mainsprings for Seth Thomas Adamantine, 89C Movement

This clock dates from around 1900 – 1920. The movement was made by Kienzle in Germany. The case is 29 inches tall and 14 13/16 inches wide. The square background part of the dial has been painted black (it may have been silvered originally) and the chapter ring is a replacement. The minute hand is 3 1/2 inches long.

This clock has the typical coarser type of German movement ( as contrasted with some by Kienzle that have fine gears and pinions, very similar to the gearing in Lenzkirch movements and French movements). The back plate of the movement has the Kienzle wings trademark, and the front plate is labeled “Pat. Kienzle”

Back of the case is marked “J. Gutmahn Dorrebach”. The gong base is named “Hurra!”

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Repair job 5548.

Related posts:

1. German Wall (Box) Clock
2. Gustav Becker 2 Weight Wall Clock Made in Tschechoslovakia (Czechoslovakia)
3. Hansen Wall Clock, Made in Princeton, Indiana
4. Hamburg-American German Time and Strike Wall Clock
5. Ansonia Round Drop Wall Clock