Tony Ambruso
12-14-2006, 10:14 AM
This ought to get me run off the board. But I know a fellow, a clock repair instructor by profession, who has discussed the concept of a real need for something in horology along the line of "America's Test Kitchen," a TV cooking show. A place where various products, tools, techniques and, ultimately, clocks are tested in a scientific environment; and the results are published for those who are interested.
Oh, there are tons of problems with getting this idea done: the place, the equipment needed, the money, the people with the skill and time to do it, the documentation process, etc., etc. But just think of all that is new and relatively recently invented that we can use and possibly should use to alter the tried-and-true, published repair techniques that were devised many years before the availability of this new stuff.
One example this fellow cited was the whole area of adhesives. The way some things are repaired in clocks could be totally altered by the use of new adheasives. But we don't know how they will hold up in clocks or the best way to perform the repair because no one has studied them. This is just one example of what we don't know. Imagine how much study and practical, useful knowledge that could be learned, if such a place existed. (I heard Walt Disney and Seth Thomas are working on building this lab.)
Of course, I am holding out for world peace happening first. But couldn't you imagine yourself getting to play in one of those experiments? I'm sure we would have gotten a chance if there were still a real mechanical clock industry alive today.
It was an interesting idea he threw out, and I was reminded of it reading some of the posts on the Message Board. In essence, that's exactly what many of our threads are about. We just don't have the organized means to perform it properly.
Heck, how many times do people ask the same questions on this board? If we had all these studies, no one would know how to find the results.:biggrin:
Oh, there are tons of problems with getting this idea done: the place, the equipment needed, the money, the people with the skill and time to do it, the documentation process, etc., etc. But just think of all that is new and relatively recently invented that we can use and possibly should use to alter the tried-and-true, published repair techniques that were devised many years before the availability of this new stuff.
One example this fellow cited was the whole area of adhesives. The way some things are repaired in clocks could be totally altered by the use of new adheasives. But we don't know how they will hold up in clocks or the best way to perform the repair because no one has studied them. This is just one example of what we don't know. Imagine how much study and practical, useful knowledge that could be learned, if such a place existed. (I heard Walt Disney and Seth Thomas are working on building this lab.)
Of course, I am holding out for world peace happening first. But couldn't you imagine yourself getting to play in one of those experiments? I'm sure we would have gotten a chance if there were still a real mechanical clock industry alive today.
It was an interesting idea he threw out, and I was reminded of it reading some of the posts on the Message Board. In essence, that's exactly what many of our threads are about. We just don't have the organized means to perform it properly.
Heck, how many times do people ask the same questions on this board? If we had all these studies, no one would know how to find the results.:biggrin: