The England that was .

Charles in Aus.

Well-known Member
Full marks and hats off to the Smiths Company of old .
I rescued this Smiths Sectric clock from a university classroom some forty years ago , it wasn't running but it only took a little oil and tweaking to fix that . Since then it has kept faithful time almost constantly with the odd day off when the power was cut or the kitchen needed renovating.
A few weeks ago a strange unnerving little squeak was heard at intervals , it sounded like a little bird trapped and wanting help .
It was the clock of course , my own failing sense of hearing made it difficult to identify . It was calling out politely and patiently waiting for its forty year service .
I was twenty odd years old then and am now significantly older, yet I could still recognise the mechanism once it was dismantled and recall how I had been impressed by the way it had been made all those years ago.
An hour later , cleaned and oiled , hopefully to last another forty years it's now back in its place on the wall .
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We had clocks similar to yours in a High school. Somehow all the clocks would reset to correct time once a day.
 
when i was little at the farm we had a cat clock on the kitchen wall. had a tail that would swing back and forth and the eyes would also move left to right.
i really liked that clock.
 
Those old synchronous motor clocks are the best; made when companies tried just to make good products rather than planned
obsolescence and maximize shareholder profits.
 
Go on Ebay. You can buy a repro in black,white,yellow and pink. Or you can go for the second listing. One of my friends had one.
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We had those in grammar school that was built in the early 50's.
High school, I don't remember clocks and that building was built in 1924.
Just had a bell mounted on the outside that rang when class was started and ended.
Richard in NW SC
 
I love old clocks.
Here is the one in my shop- it's a Westclox, probably from the fifties, made in Peterborough, Ontario. Synchronous motor, and has a little red window that pops up if the power has been out. It will be due for it's forty year service in 2032.
We had a school tour of the Westclox factory in 1968- an old brick factory full of punch presses, milling machines, and jewellers lathes- and dedicated and skilled people making watches and clocks in our own country. What we gave up for what we have. unc
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We HAVE one in the kitchen. It's going on 50 years old; about ten years ago, the motor went bad. I had a plug-in timer that had the exact same motor in it! Put that 'new' motor in it's been tail wagging and watching ever since. My now grown kids always look at that clock; I put a clock out let in the wall so no cord is visible. Don't know if those type of outlets are even made today.
 
The place I work at works on some school clocks. They super impose a tone on the ac line to make the clocks go into a one hour correction every hour and once a day a 12 hour correction. They put a tone on the ac line to activate the bells also.
 
On the subject of your post: Back in the early '60's I was stationed in England. Co GI had a Morris Minor. At coffee one morning he was talking about
having a problem with his head lights and removing his light switch, opening it up, burnishing the contacts, putting it back together and being on his
way..........here we just bought a new one that wasn't serviceable.
 
(quoted from post at 09:41:37 01/14/20) On the subject of your post: Back in the early '60's I was stationed in England. Co GI had a Morris Minor. At coffee one morning he was talking about
having a problem with his head lights and removing his light switch, opening it up, burnishing the contacts, putting it back together and being on his
way..........here we just bought a new one that wasn't serviceable.

I've done that several times on various Fergies.
 
(quoted from post at 20:30:21 01/12/20) We had clocks similar to yours in a High school. Somehow all the clocks would reset to correct time once a day.
here was a signal sent down the power line to sync the clock. Many time the pa systems would pick up that tone and broadcast it facility wide. We had to put tuned RC circuits in to remove the sync from the amps.
 

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