Remember that beautiful wooden clock hanging in your grandparent’s dining room? Its golden numbers and carved wood made quite an impression on you when you were a child and the sound of its bell will bring forever in the memory of long afternoons solving crosswords with your grandparents.

When such beautiful pieces are inherited, we all want to preserve them. It’s not only about functionality but all the memories and good feeling they bring us. However, old pieces will also come with some challenges. Follow these easy five steps to make sure your grandfather clock lasts in perfect condition for another generation.

 

1. Avoid the Heat

Old clocks suffer from being close to heat sources: high temperatures might damage its components. Due to this reason, it’s not a good idea to have your clock hung close to the fireplace or window, where the sun can shine directly on it.

 

2. Far From Humidity

Antique clocks are weak creatures; they don’t like extreme heat… or humidity. Therefore, avoid hanging them in humid rooms and any other places that are likely to suffer from dampness. Moisture can damage the clock’s parts and cause corrosion.

 

3. Seek Professional Help

Antique clocks can have very complex and unique mechanisms, so it’s not a good idea to attempt to fix them on your own. You might think that cleaning is easy, but the truth is that dirt tends to accumulate deep in their mechanism and you’d need to take out every single component and clean it separately to do it properly. In cases like this, the best idea is to get a specialist to do it for you. Only then can you be sure that the job is done professionally and in a way that isn’t detrimental to the clock.

4. Never Clean the Glass Directly

You can clean the glass of an older clock with normal window cleaner, however, don’t spray directly onto the glass, as these cleaning products contain alcohol that will damage your clock’s shellac. Instead, spray the substance onto a towel or a piece of paper before carefully cleaning the glass surface. Remember that all antique clocks have a shellac finishing that actually adds value to the piece – so you don’t want to deteriorate it.

 

5. Dust Can Cause Errors

When you notice that your clock is running slowly, one thing you can do is to look inside the clock to take a better look at the oscillator and check if it moves freely. Use a blower to carefully remove dust or any debris from it – most of the time this will solve the problem. If not, it’s better to seek (once more) professional assistance, as the cause is most likely to be a failure in the inner mechanism of your clock.

Antique clock are not only brilliant pieces of engineering but also objects that carry very valued memories. They deserve the best care you can give them and, for that reason, if you notice even a slight failure, you should ask for professional help.  If you opt to leave it, then it can begin to get worse and serve to damage the clock even more.

Here at Martin’s of Glasgow we are a clock repair company with decades of professional experience. We offer a specialised service to make sure your grandfather clock keeps working as smoothly as the day your grandfather bought it. So, if you find that you are in need of a clock repair, or even need to use our watch repair services, please free to contact our skilled team with any enquiry, and you can even follow us on Twitter and Facebook for further updates.