Brighter Fusion Blog

I bought three Lux clocks separately on eBay, and they’ve been hanging around the house for about a year, so it’s a relief to have them finished.

I put the best parts into two clocks — one for me, and one for my sister. The third is a hideous monstrosity which I’ll probably give away…or I might do something worthwhile with it after a while.

You can find these clocks refinished on eBay for a lot, or in found condition for pretty cheap. If you’re looking, see if you can find one nearby to you, because these are monsters to pack for shipping. You can pop the wood tips off, but you really don’t want to do that if you can help it.

Enough ado. Here’s the finished product:

My sister’s has been finished for several weeks. It’s very similar to this one, except there is only one face plate (glossy lavender), the hands retain their original brass plating, and there is a fun, squiggly second hand, painted dark red (OSHA red).

I was thinking of making this tone-on-tone in red-orange on dark red, but I can’t find a red-orange spray paint (except for fluorescent). I want that 60s color of electric red, as seen in Star Trek TOS. I can get a can of latex custom made to match any color sample (such as a vintage enamel pan) and then use a Preval sprayer, but that’s a lot of expense and work and it doesn’t have the same reproducability that commercial spray paint has. OSHA red seemed pretty nice for the dark red.

So, forget the red. Instead it’s aqua blue with an off-white center accent, ala the Chevy Bel Air from the 50s (only not as green an aqua, and no chrome):

After the jump, more pics and details about the project.

The work:

I lightly sanded the walnut arms and put a couple applications of Watco Danish oil on them. I used Golden Oak because it was what was sitting around, and the yellow pigment isn’t noticeable on dark woods. The oil still darkens the wood nicely.

The gold metal arms on my sister’s were in great condition, but mine were looking a little worse for wear. I scrubbed off the dirt and oxidation with a scotch brite pad and put some Watco on the metal as well. Amazing! The gold tint spread nicely along the metal and dried to a nice shine. It’s not perfect, but it’s not a noticeable problem anymore.

Glenn’s plastic was in great condition as well (as I gave her the nicest parts), and didn’t require any work. Mine looked like crap, so I scrubbed most of the gold off the plastic with a scotch brite and resprayed it with gold paint. It looks much better that it did, although less brilliant than Glenn’s factory finish.

I took quite a while to make up my mind about the color of mine (or hers either), so I ended up stripping down thick piles of paint a couple different times to start over. I tried to finish up yesterday on top of such a pile, but the paint rebelled by wrinkling away from previous layers, so I did take it down to the metal one more time.

The white in the middle is just white primer. I actually love the color and texture of the primer alone, and have used it bare on many projects. It blends perfectly with the off-white color of the walls here.

The new clock works are much smaller than the original, and just live on the back of the metal face, unattached to the rest of the clock. There is therefore a need to secure the face plate, so it doesn’t fall right out of the clock. Some guys who refurbish these to sell on eBay put screws through the front of the metal plate to hold it in the clock. The horror!!

I’ve opted to put donut-shaped neo magnets at three points around the edge of the frame of the clock, held in place with zip ties. They are more than strong enough to hold the face plate on, even with a couple of millimeters of space between them and the metal. To set the clock or change the battery, just pluck the face off the clock by the stem. Mine and Glenn’s are both this way. The magnets are far enough away from the clock movement not to bother it.

I really wanted these to be atomic-atomic clocks, radio controlled from the NIST clock (a few blocks away from here). Unfortunately the metal face plates turned out to be very effective barriers to the signal, so Glenn’s has atomic works running w/o a signal, and I just put the ordinary works in mine. So they’re both atomic style, but not atomic synced. Bummer.

The clock hands on mine started out brass plated, but were water damaged. I had to buff out the rust stains, but I buffed through the varnish too. I tried to buff out all the varnish, to re-varnish, but went through the brass altogether (as expected). So, I ended up scuffing them lightly, priming them, and painting them espresso brown, to pick up the color of the walnut arms. The dark color is actually not too bad because it makes a good contrast and makes the clock easier to read. I may put solid brass hands on in the future if I find a nice set.

So, off-white, aqua, and dark brown. Not too tacky, if a bit like the color palette you’d find at the office supply section of Target. I’m happy enough with it.

I might go tone-on-tone with aqua and turquoise if I stumble onto the right colors in the future. I do wish it were saturated with color.
Here are the big pics, including in-progress shots:

http://www.brighterfusion.com/blog_images/lux