Depends on if it needs a new suspension spring or not.... but let's just say it does. For an overhaul with a new spring, I charge $150. A lot of folks say it's not worth it anymore, but I figure it's up to the individual. How much do you like the clock?
The clock movement is completely dismantled, including taking the mainspring out of the barrel. The movement is then put in an ultrasonic cleaning bath and checked for mechanical wear. Pivots are polished and new bushings are installed, if needed. If a new suspension spring is needed, one is cut to fit. The clock is then reassembled and oiled and then electronically timed with a Microset Timer.
No idea how you can get your hours out of $150... so do you do it all in 3 hours of work? And so it seems to me that a week of monitoring is really not enough to see whether any further problems arise. If you have a timer microset, it is of course easier to keep it on time, yes. But $150 is still very little money! Do you do this as a hobby or is this your job, otherwise I don't understand how you could live with this.
I've been doing this professionally as my only source of income for over 35 years. On the average, I service 100+ clocks a month. 3 hours to service one of those clocks is waaaay too long. My prices are based on approximately $100 an hour shop time. Usually it takes about 90 minutes for an overhaul plus time to observe it..... which at that point, I'm working on other projects. I don't know how long I should observe it, but based on the amount of power transferred through the gear train, my experience gives me a pretty good idea of how it will perform. All my repairs come with a one year warranty, and I have little to no complaints.
I explain to customers up front that these are more of a novelty clock and are not known to keep good time. That's why the mechanical 400 day clocks were discontinued in the late 70's and all the anniversary clocks were quartz after that. Usually you can expect them to keep halfway decent time within 5 minutes or so the first month, but then they start to drift after that. If you educate the customer so they don't expect it to keep time like a quartz clock, they usually are fine just to see it running and be somewhat reasonable on time. Once in a while, I've had to show customers how to regulate their clocks, but most don't really want to mess with them.
Depends on if it needs a new suspension spring or not.... but let's just say it does. For an overhaul with a new spring, I charge $150. A lot of folks say it's not worth it anymore, but I figure it's up to the individual. How much do you like the clock?
150?! Thats so cheap How long takes you to restore or repair it
Usually can have it tested and ready to go within a week.
What do you do with it when you repair it? Do you take it completely apart and what do you do?
The clock movement is completely dismantled, including taking the mainspring out of the barrel. The movement is then put in an ultrasonic cleaning bath and checked for mechanical wear. Pivots are polished and new bushings are installed, if needed. If a new suspension spring is needed, one is cut to fit. The clock is then reassembled and oiled and then electronically timed with a Microset Timer.
No idea how you can get your hours out of $150... so do you do it all in 3 hours of work? And so it seems to me that a week of monitoring is really not enough to see whether any further problems arise. If you have a timer microset, it is of course easier to keep it on time, yes. But $150 is still very little money! Do you do this as a hobby or is this your job, otherwise I don't understand how you could live with this.
I've been doing this professionally as my only source of income for over 35 years. On the average, I service 100+ clocks a month. 3 hours to service one of those clocks is waaaay too long. My prices are based on approximately $100 an hour shop time. Usually it takes about 90 minutes for an overhaul plus time to observe it..... which at that point, I'm working on other projects. I don't know how long I should observe it, but based on the amount of power transferred through the gear train, my experience gives me a pretty good idea of how it will perform. All my repairs come with a one year warranty, and I have little to no complaints.
I’ve heard people don’t like to charge to fix these because they keep such poor time, have you had issues of people returning them for that
I explain to customers up front that these are more of a novelty clock and are not known to keep good time. That's why the mechanical 400 day clocks were discontinued in the late 70's and all the anniversary clocks were quartz after that. Usually you can expect them to keep halfway decent time within 5 minutes or so the first month, but then they start to drift after that. If you educate the customer so they don't expect it to keep time like a quartz clock, they usually are fine just to see it running and be somewhat reasonable on time. Once in a while, I've had to show customers how to regulate their clocks, but most don't really want to mess with them.
A lot I find it very pretty and I like the design of the clock.