Armand's Clock Repair

Armand's Clock Repair Mechanical clock repair. Case repair available. All types of mechanical clock repairs. Mantle, wall, grandfather and cuckoo clocks. Reasonable rates.

Most wall and mantle clocks are under $200. Most Grandfather clocks are under $300. Cuckoo clocks depend on condition and complexity. Cuckoo clocks that have been dropped can be restored. Nothing is hopeless unless it's really hopeless!

Hello again! I'm still here and finally getting to the point where I can get back to business. After baking a few pie...
10/02/2024

Hello again! I'm still here and finally getting to the point where I can get back to business. After baking a few pies and splitting lots of wood for the winter, getting a new heating system installed and a bit of insulation, we are finally getting to the point where we can do some clockwork. I checked my suppliers and they all remember that I'm still around so I can order parts. My lathe is up and running and new lights installed over my benches. Not working on clocks for eight months has allowed me the time to see if I still want to repair clocks, and the answer is yes! I've been doing a lot of reading and meeting interesting people so I feel that I'm ready to contribute to the world again. Hope you are all doing well. Peace, Armand

04/22/2024

Armand's Clock Repair has moved to Eastern Pennsylvania. This is terra incognita for me. However, my clock repair shop is up and running. If you are in the West Chester area, I'd be happy to provide repair services for your mechanical clock needs. I do not do Atmos clocks, but for anything else, I'm game. In business now since 2013 but I've been working on clocks for over fifty years.

07/20/2023

Today I ran across the word "wonderful" in the paper which triggered a memory that still makes me laugh. When I was aboard the U.S.S. Hancock CVA-19 in 1968, we stopped in the port of Hong Kong. We did not dock but anchored out in the bay and took launches to the island and also the mainland of China. Things were a lot different then. You could still get a silk suit for about $80 which I did, bought everyone in my family a Christmas present, hiked across the hill on Hong Kong island and generally had a great time.
When we got back out to sea, the buyer of our ship's store evidently had gone shopping too. He set out three huge boxes of Hong Kong watches. The first one had watches for 25 cents. The second box had watches for a half dollar and the third box of watches were 75 cents each. On the dial was the brand name, "Wonderful." Guys were buying four, five and six watches and wearing them all on the same arm, having loads of fun seeing how well they kept time with each other. One guy managed to have six watches synchronized for a day or more, showing everyone how all six second hands were in perfect harmony hitting the top of the minute all at the same time.
Usually choosing the middle path, I bought a fifty cent watch and began to notice that it too was keeping perfect time. This went on for several days and I began to think that the manufacturer must have made thousands of these Wonderful watches but only sold the ones that kept perfect time. Thinking I should buy a few more for my family, I returned to the ship's store only to find that they had sold out of every watch, several thousand more than the 3200 sailors that were on the ship.
Day after day that watch kept perfect time. It was a wind-up, with no automatic winder which made its performance even more amazing (and Wonderful). One day I was cleaning a spot on a wing of an A4-Skyhawk with some MEK (methylethylketone). I splashed some by accident on my Wonderful watch and Zaaaaap! The crystal turned completely opaque. I could no longer read my Wonderful watch! It was still running but I could not see through its wonderful cheap plastic crystal to see the Wonderful face.
All good things come to an end so I pealed off my fifty cent watch and sent it to the bottom of the South China Sea. Still, I marvel at the precision of that Wonderful watch and wondered what the Chinese would make next.

07/03/2023

Some time ago I was in Turkey on a tour. At Ephesus, there was a shop by the bus stop with a sign that advertised, "Genuine Fake Watches." This was too good to pass up. Going inside, I was presented with two walls of beautiful knockoff watches. Not wanting to fall into the trap of spending all day trying to decide, I picked out a Rolex with a white dial. Knowing I was being taken, I paid $45.00 for this fake watch as my one souvenir of Turkey. Later, I showed it to my watch repairing buddy. He studied it thoroughly and said, "Boy these guys are good. The only thing that gives this away is that the clasp looks clunky." We opened the back and it contained a very nice 21 jewel movement that kept perfect time. No markings but certainly made in China. The irony is, the Chinese bought Swiss machines with which to build these things and the quality is very high. I've no doubt that a real Rolex would be somewhat higher quality, but not enough to justify the price. If this watch had been available 400 years ago, it would have been viewed as priceless. The laughable part is, with my arthritis, I cannot wear any watch anyway. I look at clocks.

02/28/2023

You'd think that after working on clocks for over fifty years, I'd have seen almost everything that can go wrong with a clock. Not so! Last week I was reassembling an Ingraham mantle clock and got to the shaft that has the strike count lever attached. This is a messy gizmo that is a shaft about 1 1/2" long with three stiff wires piercing through it that slide down between the gears and do important things. First off, when the clock hits the "warning" which arms the clock to strike (you usually hear a little zip sound about five minutes before the hour), one of the arms stops the wheel right before the fly and holds it until the release on the hour. It also lifts a paddle shaped wire that engages with the slots in the count wheel. This tells the clock how many times to strike. There is a third wire that hits pins on a pinwheel and moves the paddle up and down until it hits a deep slot on the count wheel and then locks up the strike train. ANYWAY, the journals on this shaft were strangely damaged. With a 10X glass I could see that instead of being nice and round, they looked like Devil's Tower with large chunks missing as if it had crystalized when they staked the three wires in place and the journals just kept flaking off in the last 100 years. The problem was, two of the wires go through the saft right next to the journals. Usually I would grind off the journals, drill deeply into the shaft the same size as the journal, then glue or silver solder a new journal into the hole. With the wires piercing the shaft and depending on staking instead of soldering, I was concerned that if I drilled the shaft that the staking would come loose and the wires would no longer be tight. After sleeping on this problem, I decided to grind off the journals and make a stub shaft out of brass since the loading on this shaft is very light. I made two journals with rims at their base, kind of like Abe Lincoln's hat. The rim was very thin, about .006". I soldered them in place and made sure the shaft was still short enough to fit between the plates without binding. It worked pretty well. I hope someone in the next 100 years will see that repair and wonder why on earth that was necessary. Probably will never see that problem again this time around.

Once awhile I get to pretend I can do an artistic piece. This clock was missing the red fox. His left legs are part of...
10/12/2022

Once awhile I get to pretend I can do an artistic piece. This clock was missing the red fox. His left legs are part of the main carving but his body and right legs were missing. Since I love Aesop's Fables and this one in particular, I couldn't let it go without adding the disappointed fox who could't reach the grapes. With the help of my neighbor who drew the outline and my daughter who helped with suggestions for paint, an acceptable red fox was added, saving this clock from being rather cryptic with grapes and two left legs. May it have a long career on the owner's wall.

Address

1305 Skelp Level Road
Downingtown, PA
19335

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 1pm

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