Escapement

 It's not like I wasn't warned. Those spots on the top of the Japy case were identified as "blemishes" by the seller but he did make clear that there were a lot of them. That's his photo above. Close inspection and extensive reading reveals that the white marks are what are called "etches" in the stone. They come from exposure to an acid (often in poor choice of cleaning solutions) that will eat away at marble. Here's a couple closer views. As you can see the etching is all over the horizontal surfaces.  I came to understand that the only way to fully remove etches is to sand the stone down to an unblemished layer.  Well that seems like overkill and I'm not that obsessed with how this looks.  What also came through on several posts is that with the right materials you can get those etches to absorb dye and wax and thus reduce their visibility dramatically. That sounds like my kind of approach. I won't bore you (I haven't already right?) w...

Ruh Roh! The Japy case was described as "black slate" by the seller. Sounds fine to me.  And then one day I'm reading the NAWCC message boards and came across a thread describing a clock very similar to mine. So similar that I had to jump in. The story is there in the thread but I'll summarize here first.  Marc from York, UK (this is an international thriller!) posted about his white  stone Japy Freres 1855 Exposition clock. Well I'll be darned. Definitely some differences, most notably that the movement is time and strike (mine being time only) but the same makers mark from 1855.  Entertaining to see one.  In the course of the thread Marc wants to identify the type of stone used for the case. Is is marble? Alabaster? Something else? I speculated on the thread that the stone looked like Alabaster but I am no expert. I was fascinated and dug into Thorpe and researched the message boards. Is my clock black slate or something else?  Well Thorpe has an extensiv...

 Here's the Japy movement out of the clock... A little dirty but very much intact. And after I removed a number of the pieces on the plate it is lifted off thusly... Revealing... That grime on the inside of the plate is old oil and crude. Then removing each wheel with great care... Backing up slightly it's worth noting that each wheel is connected to a rod, called an arbor (in clock terminology) and the arbor tapers to a fine tip that is inserted in the plate. That tip is called the pivot. Here's a generic American wheel diagramed. The arbor spins with the wheel between the two plates as seen here... With the plate off I have to very carefully remove each wheel. This is the escape wheel... Famously old French clocks used very fine metals for their clock works and notably the pivots are quite small and can break if not handled with care. Prior to this clock the smallest pivot I'd seen was on my Schatz miniature clock. Here's a Schatz clock escape wheel and the Japy e...

What do you read in bed at night?  Me, typically mysteries/detective/crime fiction. But these day's I've been buried in  Thorpe . When was that Japy made? Does it really matter? Perhaps not but the sleuthing is a pleasure. Deep in a section about clock disassembly I discover the following: "... take a close look at the front plate, where most repairers will have left their signatures."  Precisely where this Japy is signed. Furthermore there are 4 places where Thorpe specifically discusses silk suspensions and the transition to the use of the Brocot suspension. His dating and related language wobbles ever so slightly thusly: Page 61: The Brocot suspension "became widely used around 1850." Page 77: "... after 1850, the spring suspension was gradually introduced." Page 85: "Although introduced in 1840, [the Brocot suspension] is not widely seen in clocks dated before about 1860." Page 166: Silk suspensions were "used extensively until 1...

In our last episode I told the tale of the lovely dial on our Japy Freres. But I jumped over the removal of the dial from the movement and skipped another charming and intriguing piece of its history and an instigator of quite a bit of mystery to your correspondent. [Queue the Scooby Doo music ] You may recall that in the photo below the movement is on the right (all the gears and such between those thick brass plates) and the bezel, dial and glass door are all on the larger unit on the left. That unit is held to the movement by three posts that pin to the brass plate of the movement.  When those posts are unpinned and removed from the movement the back of unit looks like this: That post is on a circular mounting plate that holds the dial in place against the bezel and the glass door. Note the blue enameled back of the dial with the hour and minute wheel still attached through the dial to the hands in the front (which you would see were we to flip over the dial).  When disass...

I was worried about shipment. Stories of slate clocks cracking in shipment abound. The seller and I traded emails about this and he did an incredible job packing the clock. The clock itself weighs about 20 pounds but arrived completely intact and super well-protected. It was triple-boxed.  Oh there's that nearly flawless dial. So often these are cracked or badly chipped. This one has no cracks and the smallest of chips right along the bottom rim of the keyhole. A very common location for chips. I did a basic disassembly of the clock just to inspect it. The "guts" of the clock, the entire movement, the whole front of the clock face, the dial, the front brass bezel and its glass door are all held in place in the case by straps of metal that go through the case front to back along the sides of the movement and connect to a rear bezel. Virtually all antique French clocks hold this complete unit in the case with bezel straps. Here's all of it removed as a single unit, slid...

The damn Rolez did it to me. Lusting after a French silk suspension clock. What was I thinking? Yes I spent(d) too much time on eBay but it's actually a very useful source information on clocks. There's so many posted and a long history of wares as well. Not that everything in an item post can be believed as the gospel. Turned out to be the case here as well... The fact is most French clocks feel too... gaudy to me. Too ornate. Busy. Just not my cup of tea. I know they are objects of their time and the truth is that there are some elaborate ones that I like (more on that another time). But I was struck by this one. I loved the shape, the simple design, the dark black slate. It was listed as: "Antique French JAPY FRERES Black Slate Exposition 1855 Mantle Clock W Key Works" Works. Well that sounds good. The seller did a particularly good job showing all parts of the clock. Both the good and the not so good. The case had very little damage aside from some spotting on th...