Mechanical Craftsmanship - Tower Clock Movements
Over the past couple years, I have been volunteering my time to help restore one of these lovely machines in our little town for the old Courthouse. The clock was built by A.S. Hotchkiss under the Seth Thomas Company and was constructed in 1876. The clock is a model #12A. The clock featured a time and strike train that was wound by hand once a week until an electric unit was fit into the existing clock movement frame in the mid 1940's. During its life, the clock has seen time periods of functional issues and lack of maintenance, ultimately preventing it from keeping time, striking the bell, or functioning at all. It now needs a great deal of attention, including reconstructing missing wheels/gears, redoing the clock dials, and even some internal structural repairs to the building itself. There's a long road ahead, but the county, help from our community, and mentoring from tower clock expert, Phil Wright from the Tower Clock Company, will keep me in-line and will be doing a portion of the restoration as well.
Here's what it looks like now. I'll post some updates as this gets further along.
