Hall Of Shame Template3/19/2021
With the pivot out of the hole you can clearly see the holes oval shape.Many people take up clock repair as a logical extension of their hobby of antique clock collecting and because it is a hobby charge very little for their work.Because of this, the clock repair trade probably has the largest percentage of untrained, unqualified people of any professional field.
There are also a large number of people who practice clock repair professionally but have never bothered to receive proper training and have therefore developed many bad repair habits. The pictures that follow are proof that ugly, improper repair work is alive and well in Central-Ohio and through out the world. ![]() Come; follow me as I take you on a guided tour through the Hall of Shame. Not because the repair itself is so disgusting (it is) but because of the type and value of clock it was performed on. This Dutch clock, made in the 1700s was sold to one of my customers by an upscale antique store in a large city outside of Ohio. Yes, thats right, 50,000 Once the clock arrived it did not function so I was called out to have a look. The new owner had been told that the clock had been completely restored before purchase. Looking at the brass lever on the right you can see three different points where the lever had broken and been repaired very poorly with solder. To the right of that lever is a steel lever and someone folded up a piece of sheet brass and soldered it around the point where it engages with the rack (sawtooth looking lever) below. What was most shocking was that the antique store owner was not willing to perform a proper repair to make it right and the clock was returned for a refund. Although proper maintenance slows the wear process, wear is inevitable and will eventually cause all clocks to fail. Friction increases when there is a lack of lubrication and the bearing surface becomes dirty. Because the steel is harder than the brass, the brass hole becomes elongated or egg shaped. This elongation of the bearing surface causes the gear to shift inside the clock mechanism and leads to an improper meshing of the gear teeth. The improper mesh increases friction and creates drag on the gear train which in turn causes the mechanism to fail. The dark crescent shape underneath the pivot is the worn area. The force of the gear next to it has caused the bearing surface to wear upward and away from its original center. In order to try to correct this, the method of prick punching was used. Because brass is relatively soft, using a hammer and pointed metal punch, the brass can be moved slightly reducing the size of the elongated hole and hopefully pushing the pivot back towards its original center. I am quite confident that you can tell that this method will never produce a round smooth bearing surface and it is ugly as well. If you look closely you can see that the pivot itself has been damaged by the punch causing it to have a very irregular surface.
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