Expert clock repair by John Kurdzionak

Examples of Custom Machined Parts

Most old antique clocks stop running properly because they suffer from years of normal "wear-and-tear". When this wear-and-tear becomes severe, the clock fails to operate properly, or fails to operate at all. (Running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a decade or more, takes a toll on all the springs, gears, wheels, bearings, metal parts, and other areas inside the clock). Did you know that most mantel clocks will "tick" and "tock" about 600 million times in just 10 years of use?

There is a misconception that clocks "last forever"…..they do not.

The companies that manufactured these old clocks are all long gone out-of-business. Replacement parts are simply not available in most cases. So custom-machined components often have to be manufactured, and fitted, as replacements.

I can design, make, and install many such replacements. Below are just a few examples of the parts repair and manufacturing I have handled in the past. (These are some old photographs from my very early work; in 2010 the site will be updated with more recent photos. I have done substantially more than is seen here today).

JFK is equipped with the engine and toolmakers' lathes, the milling equipment, and the gear cutting equipment that is required to do the work such as is seen below. Replacement wheels (gears), pivots, bearings, arbors, and barrels, and their proper fitting into your clock, are within JFK's capabilities.

Whatever part your clock needs "custom made", JFK has probably made one before and can do it again.
Click thumbnail pictures for larger view.

This first series of pictures illustrates the repair of a broken regulator arbor on an antique French clock by replacing it with a newly made one, and installing it in its assembly before putting into the clock.

Original broken arbor
Completed regulator arbor
Threaded into its housing
The below series of pictures shows repivoting an arbor in a lathe and making a new gathering pallet for an antique English tall clock.
Arbor being drilled for repivoting of its worn end.
New pivot installed in the newly-drilled hole.
Gathering pallet will be made from the steel block.
Hole drilled and filed square in the new pallet, and tested for fit on the pivot.
The new gathering pallet (right) is taking shape, as the old one looks on.
Shown is the old gathering pallet (left) and the new pallet next to it.
New gatherer and finished pivot, side by side, ready for installation in the clock.

Click thumbnail pictures for larger view.

The below picture at left shows winding arbor from an antique E.N. Welch clock (with ratchet removed).
The arbor is cracked its length up the middle, and its winding square is worn down from years of use. Its replacement arbor, custom machined by John Kurdzionak, and with the original ratchet attached, is at the right.

Click thumbnail picture for larger view.


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