Vintage Synchronous Electric clocks.....

JohnD · December 17, 2020

My interest in these started a few weeks ago when I won this Ferranti Art Deco style electric clock on eBay......

I wasn't sure if I could restore it and get it going but for the princley sum of £14 I thought that it was worth a try....

Any way an hour or two of work saw this, all restored, re-wired and up and running:-

https://imgur.com/SU3ga2R

This started the fall into the abyss........

The next acquisition was this Ferranti bedside alarm clock.......

https://imgur.com/pXh6leY

https://imgur.com/GeNN3Hw

Which also was an easy restoration......

Now there were two.......

https://imgur.com/VTUVzhX

At this point I realised that I needed more information on Ferranti synchronous clocks so bought a copy of this, the diffinitive work on the subject.....

https://imgur.com/LolepmD

Which told me that my two Ferranti clocks had both been made between 1947 and 1952, so not as early as I had originally thought...

Two was obviously not enough......... These things are adictive!

I could not resist this period green offering from Smiths, again a bedside alarm from the late 1940's, early 1950's....

https://imgur.com/94e3sFx

Now restored.....

https://imgur.com/TFsLrQI

I was less enamoured with the Smith's movement than the Ferranti ones and the next acquisition was this Ferranti Bakelite mantel clock, which my new book of knowledge informed me was one of the first from about 1933.....

https://imgur.com/NkXzMtQ

Again a fairly easy restoration....soon fully restored and running....A picture of the rewired movement here:-

https://imgur.com/XMK4rrB

At this point I started to feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.....

Another Ferranti Bakelite bedside alarm followed, this time one from the mid 1930's

https://imgur.com/iAKYfF5

This one cleaned up well, and is now running, but the dial is a bit of a disaster and because of that I have yet another incomplete one the same type, but with a better dial, coming as donor.......

Oh and I 'accidentally' bought a second round Bakelite alarm, identical to the first one..........seen here with the restored mantel clock...

https://imgur.com/C7exLkq

now fully restored, I shall have to sell one of these to help pay for my addiction......

Now at this point £14 was the most that I had paid for one of these, several being £10 or less but when I saw this hexagonal, pewter cased, one I had to have it and ended up paying almost twice what I paid for the first clock......

https://imgur.com/aOm7IAj

https://imgur.com/KAHUrNW

The dial appears to be a major problem but we shall see.....

Well it arrived this morning, so I couldn't resist seeing what I could do with it.....

I stripped it down, noting that whoever had previously been inside it had assembled it with the chapter ring the wrong side of the glass, causing the hub of the second hand to be firmly clamped by the glass.....perhaps that was why it was sold as 'not working'?

I determined that the coil was not short or open circuit and the resistance was correct, at between 4 and 5K ohms, so in for a penny, in for a pound, in true old master painting restoration style I started to attempt to clean up the dial using cotton buds, saliva and mild soap and water.....Much to my surprise, after an hour or so i had got it to a very acceptable level of appearance. All that was left to do was to clean up the case parts and glass, finally giving the pewter case a spot of car polish.....and reassemble it all, wiring it with a new flex....

Voila, the finished result

https://imgur.com/ArXGRnN

Watch this space, there are more on the way!

Can someone explain how I can get hosted pictures displaying instead of just the link?

Edited December 17, 2020 by JohnD