Springfield Clock Shop

On East Washington Street in downtown Springfield is one of the few remaining places you can find the skills of clock repair. You can find Christopher Crothers doing what he loves. I love fixing things. This is my happy place. It's with the traditional, to the whimsical, the sounds of clocks here at the Springfield Clock Shop, but frankly it's a place where time sort of stands still. Real part patience and stubbornness. Today works on repairing the parts of an American time and strike clock. I'm going to look at it with my loop and it will also kind of show me some grooves and some notches that have been taken out. Many of these are family heirlooms that have stood the test of time until now. Everything. Every type of clock. Anniversary clocks, cooking clocks. Electric clocks, mantle clocks, ship spell clocks, battery operated clocks. Electric clocks. Some prove more challenging. Cuckoo clocks are normally the hard ones. They're smaller and generally mass produced, so harder to work on. Every clock has different challenges. Some of the oldest clocks that I've worked on would be from the late 1700s. I've done a couple of wooden geared movements from the early 1800s. The average age of a horologist, that's what they're called, is 70 years old. So in a few years there's not going to be very many left. So there was a big opening for someone This training comes from Jim City College in Quincy. Sure he knows the time when a good pun works and a trusted partner to pass the time never hurts.