Today I made a few trips to Home Depot for paint to touch-up the dial's paint chips and dings. I found the perfect color and had it mixed, however, it did not match the paint sample. I made a few adjustments to it. Some areas look OK and some not as good. Since the two largest paint chips are a result of the welding of the back posts, they are precisely equidistant from the bottom and sides. Therefore, I may get creative and ask my artist son to paint something over my attempts at covering them up. Not sure what we would paint there but it is certainly worth considering. All the dings are in the vicinity of where I want my name penned. BTW, I'll be taking a few days off from the clock to enjoy Easter time! Enjoy the pics below and click to enlarge!
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OK, so I think I'm done with the dial cleaning. I still need to touch-up a few ding areas. I'll be going to Home Depot tomorrow to get some paint chip samples to see how close I can get to the current dial color. I thought I knew what color it was but all the sample chips I got at Lowe's today were way off. I'm going to Home Depot as I have Behr's app for color matching and Behr is only sold at Home Depot. I checked-in with my artist son and we have tentatively set Saturday, April 2nd as the date he will pen my name on the clock and paint-over the fading numerals and perhaps the points that mark the seconds and minutes. If that date doesn't work, we will try another. I put yet another coat of wax on the hood and dial door and I must say, they are starting to look like furniture. I want to get the hood and dial door done as I still need to install the glass and the dial door knob but have to finish waxing first. Enjoy the pics below! Click on photos to enlarge.
I worked all afternoon on cleaning up the dial in advance of my son doing his magic with the name script and numeral repair. It's definitely looking better. At least one more day and I should be all the way around the dial. Since the dial hands need to be out of the way, I reposition the movement back on the case every night and make sure I stop the clock where I want the hands. I also put another coat of wax on the hood and hood door today. Enjoy the slideshow below! Last night I put another coat of wax on the hood. First time in two months. It soaked up the wax and buffed-up to a nice hard shine. Today, I spent many hours in the workshop removing the existing town name, Salisbury, from the dial and then continuing to clean up the grime on the dial. I only got about halfway with the clean up and will get back to that in the next day or so. I plan to go to Lowe's tomorrow to see if I can find a small can of egg-shell paint to touch-up the spots remaining on the dial. For some reason, the paint can come off the dial where the back-side has a weld from the posts that hold the dial to the movement. Some were already poorly painted over and another two newer ones are just bare metal. I could paint the entire dial, but I'll likely leave that for my son to do one day. I continue to put coats of wax on the hood door as I am waiting to add the dial door knob and the putty, both of which are in-hand. I was able to find some walnut-colored putty that should work fine. I have two knobs. My wife likes one and I like the other. Enjoy the pics below! click to enlarge.
Henry Botley, the prior owner of my clock movement, penned his name on the dial around 1840. He was a jeweler and perhaps he would be pleased to know that I used a jewelers tool to remove his name from the dial. Actually, he probably would not! Today I tackled that frightening task and I am pleased that I was able to remove his name without also removing the just-as-old background paint. While I considered paint thinner and stripper, I decided that the best procedure to try was simple automobile polishing compound [less abrasive than rubbing compound] and a very small jewelers tool wrapped in a soft cloth. I applied very little pressure and let the compound do the work. I was satisfied in how it's coming out. Today I removed H Botley and tomorrow I'll remove Salisbury. I will likely also carefully go over the entire dial face as I ended up removing grime in the process and the color change is noticeable. Please enjoy the slideshow below! We picked up the cut glass today and it looks and fits good! Now I just need to make sure I don't break it. I don't want to install it with putty until I get the knob on the dial door. I expect to get that in tomorrow's mail. I decided on the font style that my son will be using as he writes my name and town on the dial. I have chosen Zapfino for my name and Landsdowne for the town name. Today I tested some additional detail that I was hoping to add to the inner edge of the dial door. The test worked but also told me that I didn't have sufficient door thickness, due to the rabbet on the back side, to go ahead and add it. I had wanted to add a cove & bead moulding similar to what is used on the hood shelf. But that's OK. I'll pickup some putty tomorrow and by Saturday I expect to be painstakingly removing Henry Botley's name from the dial and more importantly without messing up the field underneath it. I would rather not have to re-paint the background as it would be noticeable. The clock is still ticking away! Enjoy the slideshow below. Yesterday I sent my artist son our top choices for the dial name font styles. Today, he sent me samples of the candidate scripts with my name so we can review. We will be adding the town name as well and it will likely be in a different, but compatible, font style. Please see the candidates below. For the name, our top choices are Zapfino, Heaven's Gate and Byron. We will next decide on the town name type style. Also shown below is the current name that I will need to remove from the dial before replacing with my name. I will be experimenting with that task later this week. Thanks for visiting.
Today we made a trip to a large local antique store in search of a very small knob. We struck out, so I went to the Internet and found knobs close to what I've been looking for. It turns out they are found using the term piano knobs. Funny as I was telling my wife that we needed a knob like the ones on our piano. I found two knob styles on Ebay and ordered them both as they were fairly inexpensive. They seem to be good companions to the brass hinges and waist door key escutcheon that we already have. I should have them this coming Friday. Please see the pics of the two types I bought below. Enjoy!
This morning we took my old picture glass and the dial door to our glass store. They said it would take 2 - 3 days assuming the glass doesn't break. Meanwhile, my latest dial "winder" came in the mail. When I bought the clock movement it had everything but a winder. Since there are numerous sizes of winders and I didn't know what size fit my movement, I purchased months ago a device that had 5 of the most common size winders on it. From that, I learned that my movement required a size 11 winder. So I purchased an inexpensive winder in size 11 while I pursued an antique one in size 11 in brass with, hopefully, a walnut handle. Recently, I found a winder with a walnut handle. And so now I'm all set with that! Enjoy my photos below and click to enlarge!
Currently on my 5th coat of wax on the dial door. Will stop after that for now. Tomorrow, I'll take the dial door and the old glass to our local glass shop. Hopefully they can complete the cutting that day. I don't want them to install the glass as I want to use colored putty and also need to await whatever door pull I put on the door. Here is a picture from today following 4 coats of wax. Enjoy!
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AuthorI hope that you enjoy keeping up with my clock's progress! Archives
June 2016
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