How an "ordinary" repair... wasn't

Charlene (name changed) called a couple weeks back. 

"Chip [neighbor who runs Wittpenn Antiques] gave me your name and number. I have a 'Regulator' clock that I think might be 'overwound'. Anyway it stops running after a few minutes."

A few days later your local horologist headed over to Carmel for a look.

Charlene was gracious and appreciative that this clock jock made house calls.

And there it was in situ.

A large and fine old American clock. An Ingraham timepiece (which means time only, no strike or chime; see the single winding hole on the dial just left of center). 

Charlene called it a Regulator, per the glass decal, and that is mostly correct as larger timepieces like this one were considered to be pretty accurate time keepers and commonly named as such. However the term Regulator ended up getting applied to a lot of types of clocks as more of a marketing gimmick. 

Spitballing YLH guessed it was made somewhere between 1890 and 1915.

A couple things also jumped out.

Is that pendulum original?

"Oh no it was replaced a long time ago."

YLH thought to himself that the lower glass panel was also a replacement and likely so were the hands. 

"I think the dial may have been replaced too."

Hmm. That looked original to this clock researcher.

History:

Charlene and her husband bought the clock from an antique store in Oklahoma 50 years ago. It's been running / in service continually ever since.

Nice.

Has it been serviced / oiled / etc.?

"I don't think so. Not since we bought it I think. Many decades for sure."

Zounds!

Well that is a testimony to the quality of the clock and um... it is very much due for a service.

Charlene agreed.

The clock was wrapped in a blanket in the car trunk and we headed back to the shop.

Overall the case was in pretty good shape and looked original.

The dial certainly had the aged look of an original with the maker's name at the bottom under the VI.

The winding arbor was far off the center of its hole which, best case, makes it tricky to insert the key for winding.

And those hands. 

On Regulators like this the hands would likely be black and some kind of simple spade shape.

These hands are polished brass and those circle cutouts in the center of each spade section... I've seen them before on Sessions clocks (specifically their versions of Mission / Arts & Crafts clocks). A Google search of "Sessions Mission clock" will show many examples.

And... just a few months back this clock collector posted about his own recent acquisition of the Sessions Ramona, featuring those same hands.

Back to our story.

Under that dial was a small movement with the Ingraham mark. Totally original.

So original case, dial and movement.

Nice.

Once removed from the case and upon closer inspection several things struck this clock doc about this movement.

1. Dirty. Not dusty dirty. Rather many, many years of slowly encroaching and deeply embedded crud.

2. Despite lack of any maintenance in the 20th 21st century, the movement was in surprisingly good shape.

3. It was serviced as evidenced by its bushed pivot holes. And a good job someone did at that. But given all of the dirt... decades ago, for sure.

Many older clocks that run for decades will eventually develop wear on the pivot holes of their brass plates. In some cases that wear can slow or even stop a clock. Bushing is a key repair effort to remedy that wear. Further explicated by YLH in an earlier post. A brass ring around a pivot is the classic indicator of a bushing.

Eyeballing the movement further (before complete disassembly) suggested that those bushings looked to be in good shape. This clock may not need a lot of work.

One essential part of any diagnostic effort is to see how a movement behaves prior to any interventions. So YLH put it up on the test stand, reattached the pendulum, leveled it and let it run.

Which lasted only for a few minutes. It slowed and eventually stop running.

And one more thing... while the movement was running and before it stopped... YLH noticed that its ticking was... noisy.

Que?

Lot's of extraneous sounds. Not just tick tock.

Ah!

Stay tuned.

Same Bat time! Same Bat channel!