Clock Restoration
Clock prior to restoration without a crown and bottom finials.
This is an 1875 two-weight pendulum clock, made of walnut, by the German clock maker, Gustav Becker. It was purchased in Germany in 1985. It was missing the top crown and lower finials.
It’s impossible to know exactly what the original top crown and finials looked like. One can only guess based on Gustav Becker company catalog pages from the 1875 time period. They produced many thousands of clocks in hundreds of different styles, types, and sizes.
I took several different design ideas from other GB clocks of the same era and set out to fabricate a new crown and turn the various finials that were needed to make a complete restoration.
One of the most difficult problems was reproducing the color to match the clocks more than 130 year old walnut patina. After a lot of mixing and matching on scrap walnut pieces, I finally found a combination of stains that came pretty close to a match. One of the things that I found helpful was to put the clock in indirect full sunlight and do all of my mixing and matching in the same light. Once brought into the house, the color match was nearly identical.
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Clock prior to restoration without a crown and bottom finials.
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This was the crown design I came up with after looking at various GB catalog pages from around 1875.
All turning was done on my Delta lathe.
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Three bottom finials produced on my Delta lathe to complete the restoration of the bottom of the clock
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Photo of the restored Gustav Becker.
If only this clock could talk. Two world wars and who knows how many owners over more than 140 years.
How were the crown and finials lost? During one or more of the many moves the clock has probably made? Or, perhaps, lost during storage since the crown was removable? All in all, I believe the clock was reasonably well taken care of because the glass is all original, as is the winding key.
One can only speculate
Comments
That is an absolutely gorgeous wooden clock. Whoever did the restoration job on this did a fantastic job with it's crown and finals. I wish I knew the history as well. Unfortunately, things like this are unable to tell us it's history.
http://www.johnagillclockrepair.com/Clock-Repair-Restoration-Lansdale-PA.html
Thank you for the nice comments. Every day I have the privilege of walking into our family room and seeing this old clock above our fireplace mantel. It now needs a little mechanical work to keep more accurate time, but whenever I look at it I marvel at the knowledge and skills of the people who so long ago designed and fabricated it. In my restoration I tried very hard to do justice to them. I am happy to know that you think I may have succeeded in some small way.
Jon Wolfe
St. Charles, IL.
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