Navigating the Perils of Antique Clock Repair on YouTube: Why Caution is Key
Antique clocks are a fascinating and cherished part of our cultural heritage, valued both for their historical significance and their intricate mechanical workings.
However, the maintenance and repair of these clocks can be a daunting task, requiring a great deal of knowledge and expertise to ensure their preservation.
YouTube has become a popular platform for sharing information on antique…
My latest project, a Hamilton mantle clock with a German Westminster chime movement that strikes the progressive Westminster chimes on the quarter hours, and the full chimes on the hour as well as the number of the hour. Didn't take much to get it working perfectly again, just cleaning and adjusting. (See ! I'm not a one trick pony, I can fix clocks as well as restore radios. LOL !
While explaining any process on paper serves its purpose, nothing quite replaces the effectiveness of a sequence of detailed still images that, in essence, tell a story. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
A shot of punch marks around a mainspring barrel arbour
First, what is macro photography?
Macro photography is a specialized form of photography that focuses on…
It's like "Morning Pages" except circa late 90's early 2000's Livejournal/OpenDiary style. So bear with me.
I've just updated my Bullet Journal. Even typing that makes me cringe. What would 20-something year old me think of a bullet journal? What would 20-something year old I don't fit in any boxes so don't try to put me in one think of writing on grid paper? I mean...it's ALL boxes, isn't it?
But this is my life, now. I write in Bullet Journals. I wear cardigans. I claw my way through the Artist's Way carefully excising the presence of religion. I don't have boobs (or nipples). Let's just say a lot of things have changed in the past two decades.
I go to this amazing little queer coffee house. I use the word "queer" unironically and also use it for myself. I go to this amazing little queer coffee house with its fairies dangling from fishing wire on the ceiling (like, doll fairies not the slur). These plastic folks are mostly Barbie dolls made to look like fairies and sway in the breeze of people walking by amid the lines of faux Edison bulb string lights and pride flag garland.
I go there every Wednesday. I meet up with a bunch of folks (folx? I dunno the current accepted spelling these days) and we do an iteration of Stitch and Bitch. Today I worked on my fanfiction.
After I left the café I went to an Ace Hardware store. I went there because I am an adult and uncool and also because I am working to get into clock repair as a hobby and had been there last week to pick up some tools that were not clock specific.
I met a 61 year old man called Bill there last week. He excitedly chatted to me about the clocks he'd inherited and sold and those he had kept. He has a mantel clock and wanted me to take a look at it. I declined. And I declined again after he insisted. I've not even cracked open a clock and taken out a movement. There's no way I'm working on a family heirloom.
He'll show me the picture of the clock next week as he wasn't able to get over there to take it on account of it being someone's birthday (his business partner's?). Bill shares his life like a person shares Halloween candy in a big plastic bowl on the first of November.
He likes my name. But he still refers to me as a girl. But he also treats me like he's excited to see me even though we've only met twice.
Bill once got paid a few thousand dollars to do some landscaping for a rich person and a few hundred to put in a tree. So, yeah, I consider those two things like tootsie rolls. The chocolate bars are when he talks about his family and how he supports them and his childhood in a watch shop with his dad while a parade of circus animals passes by.
At any rate, after I talked to Bill I went to an antique's mall nearby and scoured the shelves for anything that would be beneficial to my clock repair goals. I didn't find anything today, but that's okay. I'll go back in a couple of weeks.
I am struggling a little right now. So lemme give you all some quality Halloween candy, if you don't mind.
In 2020 my mom died of liver cancer. I had moved back to my hometown to help her and when she started to decline I decided that as soon as she had passed and I had come to terms with it I would move on and explore my options of where to live next.
In 2020 there weren't any options. There continued to not be options for a while after that. Now, as time has finally started to even out and pass like it's supposed to pass, instead of the slow/fast/manic/depressive pace it went through during the pandemic, I am suddenly left with possibility. And that is scary.
I have a partner in Canada who works in Michigan. So there is a thought to move there. But I'm not sure how my mood will go with the rain and cold. Still, Michigan seems safer than here below the Mason Dixon line.
Currently, in this moment, I am struggling not only with motivation and courage but also with working retail when my brain wants anything but to work in the toxic environment of the needy and the entitled.
I have no energy to be creative and my clock repair hobby is also crawling because of that lack of energy. I don't know how I used to do it. How did I sustain myself while expending so much time and energy on a job like this? It wasn't drugs. I wasn't cool enough for that. It must've been joy to some degree. Youth, certainly. Perhaps hope. Perhaps ignorance/naivety. Whatever it was I definitely don't have it anymore.
Was this meant to be an entry to whine in? No. It wasn't meant to be anything. It wasn't meant to be pithy or amusing or witty or motivational. It was meant to be an entry for boredom and reflect. So there it is. I've done it. I've succeeded.
Now to sacrifice myself to the fatigue that has been insisting on attention for an hour now and draw myself a warm blanket to lie in and drown in my dreams.
