A Tall Case Clock Restoration

We had a nice tall case clock repair come through the shop recently ... Looks to be (except for the missing brass moldings) pretty much original ... There was some loose stuff that we glued and tacked back on and there are a couple of painted wood/brass molding replacements that we left in place ... We werent after an all out restoration but when we finished, it looked ran and looked just fine ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
all together in the shop ...
one of the missing brass moldings, which Trevor duplicated in short order using the cnc ..
After
Will did most of the work on the case and he also replaced a couple simpler missing brass pieces ...
There was no key and the case was locked ... With a little flashlight work and some trial and error, Sam not only got the lock to open, but made us a new key which worked better after we added the wood shim inside the lock ...
Trevor had to unstring and rewind both cables before we hung the weights to get the cable to track right, but as soon as he did, things started to tick tock and gong choice .... We hung the pendulum onsite, set the date, time and phase of the moon and tomorrow well go back and check and adjust before installing the bonnet ... An interesting project ....
All in, all done ... ticking achoice and keeping great time .... It seems that its older than I first thought. My client sent me a link and some information below, on the maker, whose name is inscribed on the dial ...
A late 17th or early 18th century bracket or table clock signed "Markwick, London". The Markwick family is known as one of the earliest of London’s clockmakers, with James Markwick being succeeded by James, presumably his son. The second James Markwick ascended into the Clockmakers Company of London in 1692, becoming a master in 1720, and it was he who sometimes signed his work as simply ”Markwick” http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7421270.

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Eliptical Arches

I think if I had to pick one thing that a CNC router can do unquestionably better, faster and cheaper than a human can do it, it would have to be the cutting of ovals and other elliptical shapes .... I tried a few back in my early days of carpentry and custom sash work and they are about impossible to do easily and gracefully by hand ... I am the proud owner of an Ovalcompass, a two axis manual compass like thing that I bought in the early 80s ... kind of works ok if youre coordinated and careful and the elipse youre drawing isnt too big. Two nails and a pencil and string ... been there, done that .... not much fun .... But ovals in CAD ???? Sweet. All day long, any size you want, perfect EVERY time.
Heres an example. The challenge ... cut four different length half ovals, all the same height, in 12 different pieces of 3/4" pvc board, with matching offset grooves for 1/4" jamb material, and get everything to line up inside and out, starting from the centers of the boards outside and the ends of the boards inside .... Yeah, maybe you can do it by hand, but Ill race ya ... Actual set up and run time, about two and a half hours hours plus a little programming ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
Heres the before .... the pvc is fitted and the joint is in the center on the outside, behind the keystone ...
The joints on the inside are behind the beams where there will be filler pieces added later... the oval openings are the width between the vertical framing ...
All the same height ... four different widths. One dimension was only 1/8" different from the other ...
All in, all done .... perfect reveals and my hat is off to the architect, Ramsay Gourd for another elegant design ... Hes got a nice website and lately has been writing a blog on architectural design ... The builder is Mark Breen and the gentleman who organized the pvc department was Eric Gutbier, who was on hand to identify which part was which as Trevor cut them ....

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