7/17/2011
By MICHAEL STRAND Salina Journal

LINDSBORG -- About three years ago, W.R. Chestnut pulled into downtown Lindsborg intending to stop at the hardware store.

"I was on my way to Hutchinson with a bunch of clocks and stopped right in front here," Chestnut said, pointing out the front window of Ye Old Clocksmith.

Parts of the ceiling had caved in, the front windows were about to collapse and the floor was covered with leaves, Chestnut said.

"I told my son this was where I was going to put my new shop, and he said, 'You're crazy,' " he said.

But today the shop at 124 N. Main is filled with clocks, music boxes, clock parts and tools of the clock-repair trade, accumulated over 40 years of repairing clocks -- mostly on a part-time basis.

Learning a trade

It all started when he was back in eighth grade, Chestnut, 60, said when his school counselor and wrestling coach "told me not to bother planning on going to college."

"He told me every rich man and senator's son was going to college," and "You pay too much attention to the girls to get a scholarship," Chestnut said. Instead, he signed up for an apprenticeship with a couple of local clockmakers.

"Mostly I washed windows and took out trash, and if there wasn't any of that to do, they'd teach me the trade," Chestnut said.

His apprenticeship lasted 4Ôªø1âÑ2 years; not long after, he joined the Army, was assigned to the Airborne Rangers and spent 1968, 1969 and 1970 in Vietnam.

The Army put his experience with intricate machinery to work. He was trained in the art of defusing mines and booby-traps.

Every spare moment

Once back home, he held a variety of jobs with companies such as John Deere and produced more than 60 stage shows.

All along, however, he worked on clocks "every spare moment."

Chestnut moved to Salina from Mississippi in the fall of 2001 to take a job with Great Plains Manufacturing, but "My house there got 'unsold' the day the (Twin) towers fell," and he spent the winter living in the tower of the old school in Assaria -- and repairing clocks.

"I did a lot of work for no charge," he said. "I considered it a kind of ministry. I'd tell people the only charge was they had to do something for someone else -- a kind of 'pay it forward' process."

The house eventually sold, his wife moved to Salina, and in 2008 he was laid off -- opening the door to his new enterprise.

Ultimate 'green' product

Clocks are "the ultimate green product," Chestnut said, as the only energy they consume is from hand winding, whether it's once a day, every eight days or every 30 days.

Of course, he's not talking about modern, electric or battery-powered clocks; there are a few of those in what he calls the shop's "Walmart corner."

"You're lucky if those last two or three years before the electric motor burns out," he said.

By contrast, the old-school clocks he keeps ticking date back decades -- some predate the Civil War -- and clocks show up at his Lindsborg shop from all over the United States.

Over the years, he's accumulated numerous tools and boxes of parts that are often useful in repairs.

"When old horologists (one who works on clocks and watches) die, I buy up their parts and tools," he said.

Getting good at 'hobbing'

But because it's rare for different clocks to share parts, and there's no place to order parts for clocks made in the 1850s, Chestnut also ends up making new gears -- a process called "hobbing" -- or modifying existing ones when a part is too worn for further use.

Few old clocks have manuals, he said, meaning he has to be able to see in his head how the mechanism is supposed to work.

"I've always had this spatial ability -- that's 'spatial' not 'special' -- and I can look at a movement and understand what it does," he said.

The most common reason for a clock to quit keeping accurate time -- or quit working altogether -- is "neglect ... a clock needs to be cleaned every five years or so. Think about it -- it's doing millions of beats a year."

"I've seen some that were kept under the bed for 50 years," he said.

Electronics are helpful

And while much of the work is decidedly low-tech, Chestnut's no Luddite when technology can help out.

Besides a sleek HP laptop -- "my connection to the world" -- he also has an electronic timer, used to fine-tune clocks once they've been reassembled.

In a matter of a couple of minutes, the timer can tell him how many beats an hour the clock is ticking at; in many cases, he can compare that number against a long list of clock specs.

"8431.9," he reads off the timer's LCD display. "It's supposed to be 8432 -- so pretty close."

With pendulum clocks, fine adjustments to the timing are made by moving the pendulum weight up or down. Moving the weight up -- closer to the pivot point -- makes it go faster, just as a figure skater spins faster as she pulls in her arms.

"There's physics in this," Chestnut explains, in addition to metal-working, wood-working, mechanics, history and other skills.

Have to be able to hear

And some of the work is on a subconscious level.

"Nope," is Chestnut's first response when asked whether he still hears the ticking and chiming of the dozens of clocks in the shop.

He did lose his ability to hear some frequencies in Vietnam, "When I was in clearing a tunnel, and had to fire," but especially with his hearing aids in, he says, he can hear people talking outside on the sidewalk.

"If you can't hear, you can't repair clocks," he says, explaining that he's learned to tune out the overlapping ticking and the chimes -- and describing it as being similar to not knowing what the wife just said.

The exception: "If it's not ticking right, or not chiming right -- I hear that."

To help with that process, clocks are set to slightly different times, so they aren't all chiming at once.

People skills vital, too

Of course, working with people is also part of the job, Chestnut said.

"You hear all kinds of stories about the history of clocks, and families," he said. "People will tell you, 'This clock stopped the same day Uncle Ernie died,' and I'm thinking Uncle Ernie was the only one who knew how to wind it."

He's also seen clocks start working on their own once in the shop and in the company of their ticking kin.

"I think maybe they're just happy to get some attention," Chestnut said. "I can't explain it."

He's also come to learn just how important clocks are in many people's lives.

"You'll get a call from somebody saying their grandfather clock stopped, and it's an emergency," he said. "You think, 'How big an emergency can it be?' "

People get flim-flammed

Yes -- he makes house calls for grandfather clocks.

"Then you get there, and find out it's an older person with macular degeneration, and they can't see, and they rely on those chimes every 15 minutes," he said. "It's pretty rare I charge more than $100 to fix a clock -- and a lot less than that if I see a need. There's a lot of folks getting flim-flammed -- people squirting some oil and charging hundred of dollars. It's a shame.

"I'm making less money than ever, and every day I love to come here," he said. "It's like working in Santa's workshop."

n Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by email at mstrand@salina.com.

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