A.S. Hotchkiss 12A Restoration - Let's Get Started

Hey everyone!

I posted awhile back about a potential volunteer restoration project of an A.S. Hotchkiss/Seth Thomas tower clock for our local Historic Courthouse. After several years in the making, it has officially begun! It took some serious work just to find someone to talk to about the clock.

The clock of topic is an 1876 A.S. Hotchkiss #12A, built under the Seth Thomas umbrella. It was installed new in the historic 1876 Courthouse in Concord, North Carolina. It is accompanied by a 994 pound Meneely bell. The installation was designed to run four 34" wood dials and strike every half hour. The clock was later electrified in 1945. In doing so, they removed the escapement components including the pinwheel, crutch and related arbor, pendulum, and also removed the unneeded strike governor assembly and the related large drive wheel that went with it. All the removed components, except for the pendulum bob itself are missing and nowhere to be found.

In addition to the missing components, I also came to find that the weight chutes had been re-utilized for sprinkler risers, communication and electrical. Additional changes included a "new" black paint job, glass back-lit dials and a galvanized sheetmetal box, which thankfully protected the movement pretty well.

Here are some pictures early in the start of this project, after the galvanized box was removed.

























It took some serious leg work to get the ducks in a row to get permission to do this restoration. I had to form a 501c3 and build a small group of people willing to deal with local politics and fund raising. Once we formed our group, we had to show proof of insurance and all those wonderful details. The 501C3 gave us the ability to fund-raise and to hire a subcontractor, or in our case, a friend, Phil Wright of the Tower Clock Company. He will be constructing winders, new dials, hands, assisting with parts fabrication and restoring the motion works and lead-off rods.

The county did not want to restore and replace the original wood dials, but instead agreed to an era correct back-lit dial that would have been of an appropriate design for an 1876 Seth Thomas installation. The bigger issue to tackle was how to return it to a weight driven clock without the missing pieces and without having use of the weight chutes. So we decided that an early 1900's Seth Thomas style self-winding, "endless chain" type assembly would fit the bill nicely. Phil will be working on these and we plan to make them as close to the originals as possible, yet stand-alone. That includes castings, lever switches, etc.. Phil also happens to have an A.S. Hotchkiss #6A that we can use to reverse engineer the missing escapement and strike parts. So, we have a direction and lots of solutions for the restoration, now.

Hang tight! I have removal pictures and more details to come...

 

Okay. Removal photos. Phil Wright, my friend Josh, and a gentleman from the County came down to hang out and lend us a hand, as well as pull out a few removal tricks to get this guy out.













Water skiing anyone?



Down the first hole!









And on down to the main floors where it could be carried the rest of the way.



All in all, everything went off without a hitch and nobody got hurt.

 

The plan...

The stairs in the clock tower are in pretty bad shape, so while the clock is out the County will be updating the structure and making needed changes, including the stairs and electrical. They will also be adding a platform below the dial room floor for our Seth Thomas style winders.

Phil will begin work on the dials and winders. The clock itself has been set up in my shop and I'll start working on the little bits and pieces, and I plan to restore the paint job, if possible. If I find that too much has been damaged or removed, it will be repainted using Phil's #6A as a model. His has all original paint. This is going to be a dirty job, for sure!

Every part on the clock will be reverse engineering in put into 3D CAD so we have a good strong record of every component, in the even that something should break or need replacing.

I'm going to have LOTS of questions during this process, but I'm very much looking forward to this.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

(before removal)



On casters and ready for fun!



Here's a teaser of the original paint on the chassis bed. There is/was some very nice pinstriping details under the black paint. Fingers crossed it will come off and reveal some decent paint to patch.

 

Here's the #6A we'll be using as reference.

 

A head scratcher we've already run into is the pendulum weight. The catalog spec for a #12A calls for a 75 pound and 8 foot long pendulum. When we weighed each piece of the clock, we found the pendulum bob to weigh 110 pounds. That is MUCH great than I would have expected. The purchase record does not indicate there was a switch to a heaver pendulum. Since we don't have the pendulum rod, we have to make a new one. however, I'm concerned that maybe something is not right.

Was it common for there to be a larger/heavier pendulum bob installed on the same length rod? Seems like this would change a lot of things in the going train. We only have the #6A to reference, which had a shorter and lighter pendulum. I'm thinking the escape wheel design may end up being different in order for the math to work out. Everything else in the going train appears to be the same as the #6A.

I could use some thoughts, here. THANKS!

 

Circling back to my own question and thinking a bit through the math, it seems the weight obviously wouldn't effect the going train ratio, so much as maybe the power, but the length OBVIOUSLY would, since it would change the period. Thinking about the #6A, it probably was a second and a quarter pendulum and this one is probably a second and a half, but I need to officially go through the math to make sure we're recreating the right parts.

It's still a mystery to me why the pendulum would be 30+ pounds heavier for this installation than what was called for. The pendulum bob style itself is also slightly different than the more modern Seth Thomas clocks, but maybe resembled more of Hotchkiss' earlier clocks. Later cylindrical bobs had basically a flat bottom, where this one is symmetrical from top to bottom. I'll dig a up a better picture of it than what I posted above.

 

Okay! Finally got out to the shop and took some pictures of that pendulum bob. It looks similar to some Seth Thomas installations, but looking through pictures of other installations I haven't seen one symmetric on both ends like this. I was looking for some visuals of actual Hotchkiss movements (pre Seth Thomas merger) to see if they had pendulum bobs like this, but came up empty.

Any and all thoughts welcome regarding this pendulum and going train situation.

 

Thank you for the response! Good to know. That puts my mind at ease, for sure. I think just knowing that it wasn't uncommon for a heavier pendulum bob to be installed than spec'd is probably good enough for me. It is definitely interesting how different it is from a standard ST bob, though. I would be curious if this design was used on any other ST clocks.

Now I just need to back-pedal and figure out what the pendulum length might have been and figure out how the escape wheel needs to be configured to accommodate the length.

 

Yeah, there is definitely a slot in the floor, but no box. However, there was/is indications of a platform of sorts below the floor. Some rough math would certainly indicate the allowance for an 8 foot pendulum.

Stupid question. Is the pendulum "length" measured from the spring mounting location to the bottom of the center of the pendulum bob (center of mass)?

I've been thinking I need to make something for a stand, of sorts, to accommodate that longer pendulum. Thankfully I have high ceilings. HA!

I should be able to back-calculate from the cluster back to and fill in the blanks for the pinwheel. We are making a few extra blanks, just in case, as well.

 

Okay! I have an update on this restoration. I could use some feedback and guidance on the condition.

I started carefully stripping off the newer paint to uncover the original paint. So far it's been exciting and disappointing at the same time. I revealed some pin striping and some beautiful artwork, but a lot of it has been very much destroyed. At some point, anything that could be unbolted was stripped of its original paint and painted black. The base chassis and legs appear to have been the only thing not completely stripped, but there does appear to have been some sanding to prep for the newer paint. The upright plates were removed and painted, all of the wheels were stripped violently with a wire brush and painted over, and everything related to the motion works was repainted.

There are some pictures below of the only original paint I could expose (so far). Two sides of the chassis have somewhat clear views of what could have been there, while the other two sides were pretty well destroyed.

So now I'm at a crossroad... keep what's left and restore everything else? Or completely strip and restore every detail possible. I love that there is some of the artwork left, but it is so damaged I'm not sure there's enough to see. Ultimately the County will make the decision on what they want, but they will be looking to me to tell them what the right thing is to do. I would like to do what's right for history, but I'm not sure there's enough to save.

Thoughts? I could really use some guidance.

Pictures:



This is the clearest side



Next clearest



And the other two sides that just don't have much left.



Basically nothing left on this side except a blob of gold and a couple pinstripes in the corners.

 

Can anyone who has done a restoration of original paint offer some suggestions on rather or not this is just too far gone? With how rare the clock is, I don't have much of anything to reference. Only a #6A, and it appears to be different, but I'll be comparing notes on it, for sure.

I could really use some suggestions. I know the County wants to do what's right for the preservation, but they also are anticipating a nicely restored clock.

Thanks for any help!

 

Does it have a top full-cast bridge like the later 16's or does it have a large top pillar between the plates like ours?

 

Neat!

Yeah, that casting configuration change occurred sometime in the late 1870's, early 1880's, I believe.

 

Hey everyone! I have some great updates on this.

Phil Wright finished our dials and we are going to install them Thursday morning into the historic courthouse. We're super psyched! It will definitely change the entire look of that courthouse.

Here's how they turned out. The faces themselves are new, I used used SolidWorks to create some accurately scaled Seth Thomas numerals and had them water jet cut and Phil had them powder coated. All of the motion-works components are original to this installation with the exception of the bushing that passes through the dial face, which is still an original Seth Thomas dial part, but not original to this installation. Hands are also new.







Phil found the motionworks parts to be in great shape and only needed refinishing





And the money shots of the final products ready for installation







We are beyond excited!

In addition, we have also hired a friend of mine, Tyler Nottingham, to take some drone video footage to capture the before and after the installation. This will help our fundraising, hopefully. We still have several thousand more to raise before we have all the funds we need to finish this restoration.

Here's a few action shots from that morning...







I was also asked to be part of a questions and answers session for our local TV station. I hate being on that side of the lens, but we could use all the exposure we can get to get the restoration done.



Anyway, until next time... I'll post more as things happen.

Thanks for following along.

Scott

 

Another update for you folks. The new dials are in and we couldn't be happier! It really changed the whole look of the courthouse.

Now it's time to get back on the movement! Some more fund raising to do for all the pieces we have to re-make, but we'll get there.

Some pictures for you.

Phil Wright setting up the new hands...



Mock up before locking it down



One black eye...



And the finished installation

 

Hey everyone! I have another update and I could use some opinions.

I am starting to uncover even MORE original paint and pinstriping on this clock. I definitely think there will be enough to salvage that puts me way past the idea of doing any paint "replacement". The question is, should any of it be TOUCHED UP? I'm a little out of my comfort zone, here. I know the wheels themselves will get fresh paint and pinstriping (since they absolutely have no original paint), but I would like to leave all of the original paint, indefinitely. My concern is that there's enough exposed metal that I think it will rust in those spots. Something needs to be done to protect it without ruining the original paint.

Is it best to just touch up the exposed metal and leave the rest alone, or should the large areas be touched up to repair the original intentions, where visible. For example, there are area where clearly the paint is damaged, but the intended pinstriping plan is obvious and could be repaired. Either way, I'm excited to see this much original paint! So beautiful!

Any input would be appreciated!

 

Haven't done an update for awhile. Thought I would go ahead and add some progress pictures from over the holidays.

I've now got almost all of the later black paint off of the lower part of the chassis to expose what's left of the paint. It's even more spectacular than I expected and I think I've exposed enough to say it needs to be left alone and protected.

The upright side plates/A-frame parts appear to have all been stripped and repainted the later black paint. So those will have to be restored along with all going and strike train components. All the wheels, drums, and about anything else that could be unbolted, was repainted. I'm open to input on the subject, if anyone has anything to share.

Also, I think I forgot to share that we recovered a bunch of the ORIGINAL parts from a local gentleman who had kept them in his back shed since 1977. This included the original pendulum, fly fan governor, and some misc. winding parts. An incredible find and we are blessed to have been contracted by the man who had them. He simply stashed them away to protect them in case someone restored the clock. Amazing! Most of the escapement is still missing, so we still have to make those parts, but still an incredible find!

We still have a long way to go and still need to raise quite a bit more money for restoration, but it's starting to look like a clock again!











Some of the recovered parts and Allen McDonald, who kept them from being lost.

 

Anyone have any thoughts on the paint situation? I feel like it would be a crime to do any updates, fill work, or "restoration" to the paint I've been uncovering. I feel like it should be left alone and protected. This adds a bit of complication to the upper portion of the chassis and all of the wheels that need to be redone. They will a little too bright and shiny if I just paint them the correct colors, at this point. Should the idea of maybe trying to do some faux aging to match the new stuff be considered? I have a great artist that is going to replicate pinstriping for me, so no worries there, but the base colors are going to seem really vivid.

The rest of the lead-off components and motionworks were completely restored to original and proper colors and look amazing, but they don't sit right on the clock, so I'm not concerned.

I also have the bevel assembly to restore and paint, and it is within an eye shot of the clock movement, so that may have to be the transition assembly, visually. It's definitely going to be incredible all cleaned up, all in itself.