Dwindling cadre of repair technicians keeps antique clocks ticking

The men and women who repair antique clocks hold history in their hands.

"There are not many of us out there anymore, but these clocks are a part of people's history that is very important to them," says Paul Manfredo, of Paul's Clock and Repair in Sheridan. He is a certified master clockmaker who has been repairing clocks for 42 years. His wife, Judy, repairs grandfather clocks in people's homes.

"Everybody calls us the mom and pop of the clock shop," Manfredo says. For him, it was a passion that began early in life. He was fascinated with whirling gears. He bought his first clock at a flea market in 1968.

"I saw all of those gears and things, and knew that was what I wanted to do. I believe God put me on the planet to repair clocks," he says. He became a factory service representative for six clock companies, and passed a certification test. It is a test that no longer exists, because there are so few who repair clocks.

The Manfredos have developed a loyal following since opening their shop 31 years ago.

For example, Fox Chapel physician Dr. George H. Gilmore and his wife, who at one time had six grandfather clocks.

"Judy comes and makes house calls, but the clocks that are complicated she takes apart and takes to Paul. They're incredible," Janet Gilmore says.

Dennis DeSilva, like many others, started fixing clocks as a hobby. In 1986, while he was living in New Jersey, he took a class with a German clockmaker. After moving to Pittsburgh, DeSilva and his wife, Lois, opened The Clock Works in Bellevue. He fixes the clocks and she takes care of the bookkeeping.

The shop also has an array of antique clocks for sale that can be purchased "as is" for tinkerers, or repaired and cleaned to ensure the clocks work. He recommends yard sales for surprising finds.

"You can find cuckoo clocks at a garage sale cheap enough, and it's well worth it to have them repaired, or to replace the movement," he says, noting that new German clocks can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

He learned cuckoo clock repair from a member of the family that started the American Cuckoo Clock Co. in Philadelphia.

"I'll always remember the joke he told about a lady who walked into his shop holding just the pendulum from the clock because 'that's the only part that doesn't work.' " DeSilva says.

Dave McGee, owner of Pittsburgh Clock & Lock Company, Mt. Oliver, has touched Pittsburgh's timepiece history. He has been the caretaker of the Kaufmann's clock since 1987-88, when he created new hands for it. This past winter, when the minute hand blew off during a February snowstorm, he created a replacement hand fabricated out of brass.

"I still had the original template," he says.

McGee has researched the clock's history and learned that the Kaufmann's clock, situated at the corner of Macy's at Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street, was made in 1913 by the Colwell Company in New York, but even with research at the New York Public Library, he has not been able to find the actual clockmaker.

He did learn that Thomas Edison was asked advice on how to light the clock. "The country was going to electric, and nobody had any idea of what that was," says McGee with a chuckle.

He has been repairing antique timepieces since he answered an ad in the newspaper when he was just out of high school in 1970, and was a paid apprentice to Howard Hartman, a well-known Pittsburgh clockmaker.

McGee teaches a class in clock repair at the Steel Center Vocational School in Pleasant Hills.

"Clock repair is a dying art. With each generation, more is lost. I want to pass on what I know."

There is hope for the future ticking of antique clocks, says James Fearer, 38, the owner of James Douglas Jewelers in Monroeville and Murrysville, who learned the craft from "an old-timer."

Fearer now services the clocks and watches in the grand ballroom at the Sailors & Soldiers Memorial Hall & Museum, as well as the grandfather clocks at the Oakmont Country Club.

"Clock repair is a fact of the clock business," he says. "Regardless if it's new or old, people have emotional investments in their clocks."

The National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Lancaster County, offers year-round exhibits of clocks and watches. The current exhibits are "Bond Watches, James Bond," and "Grand Complications, Art of the Watch."

A clock and watch making and repair school is located near the museum.

"Clock repair is an industry that has lots of work, but no jobs," says Jim Michaels, director for the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors' School of Horology. It is one of only two schools in the United States that teaches clockmaking, and the only one that teaches restoration and repairs. The two-year program can be taken as one-year programs in clock or watch repair.

Details: 717-684-8261 for the National Watch & Clock Museum. Or visit www.nawcc.org for the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors.