In response to Crowbard's comment/request the other day, today's blog is largely about my work (or play, whichever way you look at it).
I was asked a while back to have a look at the above wall clock. It was made around the year 1695 by William Speakman of London, who was, at about the time the clock was made, Master of the Clockmakers' Company. He was born about 1637, apprenticed in 1654, and died in 1717. After a minimum amount of attention (mainly 'setting in beat') the clock is going, keeping quite acceptable time and striking the hours on a silvery sounding bell (i.e.'ding'y sounding). Would't it be something to think that a clock you'd made would be still performing its duties three centuries later (and looking as if it will be still doing so for a good many years yet) ?
The above four items (not counting the stool on which they are displayed) represent today's work. The top three are snuff boxes and the lower one a small powder flask (probably a priming flask). The two oblong boxes at the top just needed a good clean and overhaul. The shoe snuffbox and the priming flask, however, both needed some repair, restoration, and a good clean - invisible mending in other words. The shoe snuff (before anyone asks the usual question) is probably the oldest of the four, with a conservative dating of around 1760. All of it quite satisfying work - well I enjoy doing it, and shall carry on doing it as long as my eyes and hands are good.
5 comments:
I concur, please keep us up to date with your latest projects. I continue to be fascinated. I am also (as I believe I once mentioned to you) astounded at the length of time that some of these clocks have been running for. May I suggest a breakfast and some further edification for yours truly might be in order? As an aside, am I right in thinking that powder for priming was generally ground finer than that used to propel the ball?
Hello Steve. Like the sound of breakfast. Will check with Ann - her diary is more reliable than mine, but I think most Saturday mornings are free (except for the 23rd of this month). You are right about priming powder, but only as far as artillery or large bore game shooting (punt guns) are concerned. Most musketry instructions show the musketeers priming from the same cartridge as that which contained the main charge; and most sporting prints show sportsmen with one powder flask and a shot flask (usually leather so that the shot wouldn't rattle, as it might in a metal flask, and put up birds unnecessarily). On the other hand most people serving a cannon are shown with a priming flask handy. As a teenage boy, I sometimes helped the last fenland punt gunner, Ernie James, load one of hishis guns, and he used 'corn powder' for his main charge (so called because the gunpowder had grains much the size of wheat grains), and primed with much smaller grained powder from a priming flask.
The finely ground priming powder burnt much more quickly than the 'corn powder', it therefor burnt more hotly. This ensured it could ignite the main charge despite the cooling effects of thick bronze barrels as well as evading the problem of large grains blocking the fine bore of the touch-hole.
Hello Crowbard. Yes - your remarks do rather bear out what I was saying about the difference between musketry and artillery. I don't know if you've ever read Col. Peter Hawkers book on advice to young sportsmen which came out in the early 19th century. Someone had remarked that the new fangled percussion lock for sporting guns meant that even in wet or very windy weather ignition was certain. Col. Hawker replied crushingly (and unanswerably) that "Gentlement do not go a-sporting in such weather".
Indeed Mike,
I understand battles have been delayed by such weather by polite gentlemen officers playing cards with their fellow enemy officers until they could make war properly without risk of besmirching their pretty uniforms.
On occasion, Waterloo for instance, regardless of the urgency to win the battle before the arrival of reinforcements, such as Blucher and his Prooshians, even the wiliest of Generals, such as Boney, have stayed their hand as long as possible.
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