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This Gilbert Black Mantel clock has a date stamp of 16 (meaning year 1916) on the movement. The painted wooden case is 16 9/16 inches wide at the feet, and 10 7/8 inches tall. The celluloid covered dial has Arabic numerals, and the minute hand is 2 19/32 inches long.

The movement has steel plates with brass bushings for the pivots to rotate in. Brass is traditionally used for movement plates, but several American makers (including Gilbert, Waterbury and Ingraham) used steel plates around 1900 – 1920. The repairer can ream the brass bushings and insert new bushings, just like installing bushings in a brass movement plate.

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Repair job 6068. I polished the pivots and installed 15 bushings, and straightened a bent pivot. The rear time main wheel pivot was very rough, it left the factory that way. Gilbert movements commonly have rough pivots from the factory. The original mainsprings are 3/4 inch wide and 0.0167 inch thick.

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This Ansonia mantel clock has a black enamled iron case, and was made around 1890 – 1910. It has Ansonia’s 4 pillar rectangular movement that uses thinner (weaker) mainsprings than most other American clocks. This reliable movement was used in many Ansonia mantel clocks.

The case is 10 7/8 inches tall, 11 1/2 inches wide, and the dial’s minute track is 4 1/4 inch outside diameter. The length of the minute hand is just under 2 1/8 inches.

This clock has its original, thin mainsprings: both are 3/4 inch wide and 0.0155 inch thick.

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Repair job 5545. Pivots polished, installed 11 bushings.

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This beautiful Schatz standard 400 day clock has a black and cream color dial, and a black and brass base. The paint is all original. The date code on the back is 9 54 (September 1954).

I overhauled the movement and installed a new 0.004 inch thick suspension spring and a new lower suspension block. The movement is categorized as Horolovar back plate no. 1014A.

Repair job 5466.

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This beautiful Seth Thomas green and black Adamantine mantel clock has the older type of movement with rear escapement. See my clockhistory.com web site for some history of Seth Thomas Adamantine clocks. This clock is 11 3/8 inches wide and 12 1/2 inches tall. The dial is not original, and has a 4 1/4 inch minute track.

The time click was broken in two when this clock came in for repair. The strike click was a previous replacement that was located incorrectly. I installed two new clicks, and the original wire clicksprings were in good condition. I also polished the pivots, installed 12 bushings, and replaced the wires in the escape wheel pinion.

The mainsprings appeared original, the time spring measuring 11/16 x 0.0175 inch, and the strike spring measuring 11/16 by 0.0183 inch. They were in good condition and so were retained in the clock. If they needed replacing, I would have used thinner ones, 0.0165 inch thick.

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Repair job 5437.

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This clock was made in the mid to late 1880s or early 1890s. The movement bears patent dates of 1879 and 1884.  This case originally had a black finish, and it appears to have been overpainted in black later. The clock’s dimensions are height 19 3/4 inches, width 13 7/16 inches, and the dial has a 5 inch diameter time track.

The movement has the unusual feature of a centrifugal strike speed governor instead of a fan fly. The governor was patented February 26, 1884.

The hands are the original Gilbert style Maltese. Note the wide part at the hub. The paper dial has been replaced.

The mainsprings are original “W. Barnes” mainsprings, and are fairly smooth. The time spring is 0.017 – 0.018 inches thick, and the strike spring is 0.018 inched thick. I kept the original springs in the clock, but if they needed replacing, 0.0165 inch thick springs should be used. There was no reason to replace these springs, as they had worked fine for over 100 years, showed no signs of damage, and were not causing excessive wear to the mainwheel teeth.

Repair work included replacing the wires on 4 pinions (T2, S4, T4, S2) and reversing the wires on T3 and S3. The click rivets were replaced, and the wear polished out of the pallet faces.

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Repair job 5337.

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