And now—what does it take to maintain a Telechron, or to get a broken one working proudly once again?

Telechrons were made from wood or metal or Bakelite, an early plastic. Just as with teeth, it’s fun and challenging to work out the best way to restore their strength and beauty, in all three of these materials. The internal mechanisms need attention as well, and I strive to be as non-invasive as possible.

When the case is crafted of wood, I sand and sand, then apply stain that matches the original well. I then finish the case with five coats of Tung Oil. I have restored old wood many times. It’s always a thrill when a dull, scratched, washed-out old piece comes to life with stain and finishing. There is a magical moment when the wood just bursts into incredible depth and complexity of grain. Yet I intentionally do not try to make these clocks “perfect.” Our clocks have scars, and like the best of us humans, they bear them proudly.

With metal cases, less is more, at least if there is intact paint or an old plated finish. Once, though, I sanded a corroded hunk of brass down to its bare bones and then worked for ages to get it polished again.

Bakelite is a hoot. Each Bakelite case is, in one way of looking at it, one gigantic molecule. Yet deep within is filler, like sawdust, mixed into the plastic. One must not expose that inner layer, or the case will never be polished again! If damage is light, I buff with Brasso metal polish on a succession of paper towels. With more damage, fine steel wool is used, lightly and for a very long time. And then, giving away a Bakelite-restoring secret here, I apply the thinnest film of black shoe polish. The clocks, many from the 1930s, look brand new after that.

Mechanically and electrically, Telechrons need servicing too. Many were owned by smokers, and the insides have a gummy layer of hydrocarbons–the ones that escaped the former owner’s lungs. So I clean all the gears, sometimes leaving the mechanism together, sometimes taking it all apart. The rotor, the electrical heart of any Telechron, needs at least the addition of new oil, performed in a non-invasive manner. Sometimes, I do have to send the rotors out for rebuilding by an expert.

Here, by the way, is that ultimate expert on all things Telechron, presented in case a reader wishes to have a family heirloom restored:
http://silverdollarproductions.net/

The famed red dot on the face is Telechron’s indicating device that signals when the power has gone out. If that happens, or when we unplug the clock, the dot will turn to red. When we reset the time, moving the hands will set the dot to white again.

One of the attributes of Telechrons that impresses me is that they still work. Telechrons are anywhere from fifty to over eighty years old, and after some careful restoration they run quiet and keep accurate time. How many of today’s technological artifacts will we be able to say that about?

Another admirable quality of Telechron clocks is their thoughtful design. They are easy to disassemble, work on and put back together again. Their robust mechanisms are made of brass and bronze and steel and they simply do not mechanically wear out or fail in any kind of normal human time frame. And the way they are put together just makes sense. There’s a life metaphor in that sensible design. (They also keep accurate time because their motors are tied into the 60-cycle-per-second electrical current in the U.S. They “know” that 60 cycles equals one second, and that’s how they run correctly.)

Telechrons also avoid batteries, which were unreliable for many decades. Once batteries were improved in the 1950s, and the quartz movement was invented in the early 1960s, people started buying battery-powered clocks so that they wouldn’t see a cord running down their wall. And so we have littered our landscape with heavy metals and toxic chemicals as we’ve thrown away alkaline batteries by the hundreds of millions. What were we thinking???

Oh, and the last thing to mention about Telechron clocks is the cautionary tale of their demise. You see, when the whole battery/quartz movement thing happened in the 1950s and 1960s, and competition decimated Telechron sales, parent company General Electric cheapened the design, the casings, the gear materials, the screws that held the clocks together, the rotors—everything. With stiff competition and inferior products, the Telechron brand eventually disappeared.

It is, to me, a profound question to ask: What would have happened if, in the face of decreased sales and increased competition, Telechron had radically improved its quality instead? Reflecting upon that question, I surmise that if we react to external pressures by becoming even better than we were before, we will always succeed.

Rick Wilson DMD