Google+ Online Grandfather and Mantle Clock Worshops in 2018

Ok so I hate computers. I really do with a venom. So, in perverse fashion, I’m going to use the tech for a bit of fun and education in order to expand the average brain size on the planet. And because I love talking about clocks.

I like showing people how clocks work. I just do. It gives me great pleasure to introduce people to mechanical science and talk to those who already understand it. So, clock workshops it is!.

No doubt it will be a complete technical disaster and flop with 2 people logging in trying to get me to fix thier clocks for free online. Thats NOT what this is about, we are going to go about this a different way. Each meeting is going to focus on a topic. So, here are some suggestions Ive come up with but I would welcome plenty of suggestions so I can come up with popular content that will get a good look from a reasonably decent audience.

My firs workshop will probably be “Setting up a mantle clock” thats stopped and diagnosing what the problem is with it. I get a lot of this and I do over the counter fixes for it at the centre for a small fee. Lots of people all (over the world now – this is a well read blog!) cant get to the centre and a bit of tweaking on a mantle clock can usually get it going or get a fix plan in place. So what we will do in this sessions is set up a “knackered” clock and get it going. Ill have a few examples on hand to show so we cover a few variants and it should be a really useful session for getting grannies old mantle clock thats been stuck in the attic going with a home clock repair!.

The second workshop (or maybe the first – I dont know) will be “Understanding your grandfather clock”. Right. This is a bit of a bug bear to me. It gets my blood up (a tiny bit). PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO OWN A GRANDFATHER CLOCK. Its like people nowdays not knowing how to own a car. They would have no idea where the oil went, would clean it with paint thinners, and leave it in the drive for six months before replacing a faulty windscreen wiper blade. Knowledge out there about grandfather clocks is that bad and its leading to good clocks being undervalued, scrapped and abused. Our mission at Braintree Clock Repairs is to stop this appalling grandfather abuse. Some of these clocks are only turned once every seven years. Weve got to stop this so log onto my grandfather clock talk and Ill explain how your clock works, what all the bits do, and how to date your clock. I will do this with a few movements in different states of deconstruction rather than a live strip down as I dont want to break my John Mason 1730 London Brass face which we may as well use as the demo dolly.  This knowledge will help you extend the life of your clock for the next generation and you will love your clock even more once you know how it works – its almost devine in its simplicity and accuracy and its no cooincidence that its pendululm design was by one of histories greatest astronomers and atrophsisysts – Christian Huygens (wikki link to him).

If you would like to attend either of these events Ill let you know when I have enought people interested – say 20 people, assuming 5-10 can make it live. That should mean we can really make it two way like a consultation along a common theme.

This is a contribution to our clock friends and community so don’t hold your breath on either of them as its probably going to be late January are the earliest.

To sign up to the events just email me at admin@braintreeclockrepairs.co.uk with the subject of your email as “EVENT MANTLE” or “EVENT GRANDFATHER. Dont bother with a message as I wont read them – Ill just put them in a a folder until its time to group email you all instructions with how to attend the Google+ meeting. To prepare you will need the following

  1. A gmail email address e.g. john6787876@gmail.com If you dont have one its very easy – you can just go here and it will take you through it. I assure you its perfectly safe and secure and gmail is one of the best systems out there and I find it much easier to use than hotmail and outlook which seem completely {legal department deletion}
  2. Once you have a gmail email address then you will be able to get on google+. If your signed into your gmail account it just lets you onto the google+ page. This is a bit like facebook without all the Facebook. Its a basic service that allows you to leave posts, see others posts and join video chats. You can join without a camera at your end so you can see me but I cant see you, or, if you want to show me your clock and ask questions you can turn your camera on. In either case you will be able to see me live and I will just see you as an icon or, if you choose, see and/or hear you. If your already a gmail user, are signed in, and have not looked at google+ then the main page is https://plus.google.com/ – as I say, its basicly google facebook but its not as family centric or enclosed. Its a great way to meet people from other nations Ive noticed; facebook works on locality with a lot of its services whereas google+ is more global. The google+ system I am going to use is called “Hangouts” if you want to familiarise yourself with what a “Hangout” is and what it looks like on the screen etc.

So – please send in your emails and we can get this off the ground at some point in 2018. I hope.

Happy new year to all my customers and the people Ive met along the path of clocks this year. It has been inspiring. Thank you.