The back of the clock showing the state of the movement and the broken bellows
This is the last clock of three, that I bought as a job lot at a boot sale in West Sussex.
The first two were relatively easy as all the parts were there, this last one though, was in a dreadful state.
The case was missing a side door, the top frieze looked as if it had been glued on with toothpaste, the dial (an old cardboard one) was so discoloured you could not read it, the movement was really grungy, the minute hand was missing as was one of the cast iron weights, and the bellows were beyond repair!
The first job was to remove everything from the case, assess the damage and order new parts. My whittling skills were put to the test, creating a new side panel to match the existing one, the white gundgy glue was scrapped off the finial (and roof), new clips added so that the top finial fitted the roof properly, the old dial was removed and thrown away, finally the case was cleaned and given a coat of wax.
The bent tooth is marked with a black dot
Next came the movement. this was stripped cleaned then inspected, after re-assembly it was obvious that a lot of re-bushing of the bearings was required, the escape wheel was loose on its arbor, with this repaired and the unhinges done, the movement was still not working, so I decided to ditch it and get another movement from a donor clock, again doing my normal of taking it apart, cleaning it then giving the parts a final clean in the ultrasonic bath, before reassembling, even this movement kept stopping at ten past the hour, so after another inspection I found a bent tooth on the drive wheel, once the dentistry was done, the clock chugged along quite happily.
New bellows were added, with new linkages, I reused the existing bird, wanting to keep as much original as possible; a new dial was fitted, reusing old hands, I managed to find a replacement weight for the one that was missing, then the clock was finished.
Movement cleaned and new bellows fitted
Testing for a couple of days now and the clock works fine, although the first cuckoo is a little laboured, I have put that down to the stiffness of the new bellows and hope they will free up with time.
I lovely little clock that has been rescued from the scrap heap, we are Vetera Novis, we take old things and make them new again.
The final product, a cuckoo clock resurection