9/26/00 The Clock is Done!

I sent my clock out to be repaired a few weeks ago, and it returned today in the mail ready to be installed. I sent the Veglia clock to a place called “D&M Restorations” in South Carolina, and I’m very pleased with the work. The face has been cleaned up, and the hands were repainted. I may have to restore the rest of the gauges because the clock looks so good! It turns out D&M has been around for quite some time, and was originally located in CT. François told me he has used them for instrument restorations for twenty years! I guess I went to the right guy!

Originally, I was thinking about replacing the mechanical movement inside the clock with a modern reliable quartz movement, but when Mike of D&M looked at the mechanism, he advised me to try the original movement. His feelings were that some of these old clocks could never be fixed because of the condition of their movements, but my clock showed promise. He also felt it a shame to destroy a perfectly serviceable clock with quartz guts without first trying to fix the old design. I agreed, and spent $115 on the repair. I hope he’s right!

I received the clock at work, and took it down to my maintenance shop to test it’s accuracy. I clipped some leads that supplied 12 volts to the clock, and it began ticking. Just like my radio, it was nice to see an old piece of technology come back to life. I set the clock to one of our digital clocks and set it aside to check how much it drifts in one day. I doubt I’ll ever achieve the accuracy of our clocks at work because they synchronize to the U.S. Atomic clock on a daily basis so we can accurately time a television show!

O.K. for all those people starved for more movies, you can click on the picture to see a clock tick! Oooooooooo!

Previous Restoration Day
Next Restoration Day
Ferrari Home Page
www.tomyang.net