NEWFANE — Ray “The British Clockmaker” Bates maintains a delicate balance in his professional life.
He honors the past, focuses on the present, and keeps an eye on the future.
This rare combination of talents has made this Newfane resident one of the most sought-after clock restorers in the country.
Bates honors the past by understanding the intentions of clockmakers working before the Industrial Revolution. Before he begins the restoration process he wants to understand what the original clockmaker had in mind. Only then will he begin the precise, time-consuming challenge of making a 300- or 400-year-old clock measure time again.
As he focuses on the mechanism sitting on his workbench, he takes no shortcuts. No compromise is good enough.
He knows clocks - how they work and how they should look. If parts are missing, bent, or worn out through use or abuse he'll make new parts identical to those originally crafted for the clock.
If the brass is blackened with age, if the works are tangled with spider webs, or if the gears are gummed up with neglect or errant oiling, he'll clean it until it shines and runs as smoothly as it did the first time it was wound.
“My mission, as I see it,” says Bates, “is to save as many of these antique clocks as I can, to bring them back to their original mechanical integrity - using all of the same techniques and materials from their period - and hope that someone will maintain that tradition long after I am gone."
Bates' skill set is not limited to ancient crafts. He cuts new gears with a computer-controlled milling machine. His website displays numerous examples of his skill in professional-quality photographs.
Born in Scotland to an engineer father, Bates started deconstructing and reassembling household items at an early age. He soon moved on to building finely detailed airplane models.
When Bates was 16, his science teacher recognized his talent and introduced him to the R.L. Christie clockmaking company, where he completed a five-year apprenticeship. During this time he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Edinburgh.
“I have no illusions about the apprentice experience,” he says. “It was mostly busywork: sweeping up and fetching beer. But seeing how a master works, observing how it is done, is the essence of learning the trade - and that is what I was getting even before I realized it.”
The hands-on experience followed with more and more challenging tasks.
On completing his apprenticeship, Bates became a Craft Member of the British Horological Institute of London. In 1952 he achieved master status by building a clock of his own from scratch.
Bates's belief in the importance of apprenticeship spurred him to offer an apprentice program in his own shop many years later. Five young men have completed their apprenticeships.
The most recent graduate is clearly the most successful. He is Richard Bates, Ray's son, who has worked with his father for the past 18 years.
Richard's path into clockmaking was not as traditional as his father's. He studied acting in college. For a few years after graduation, he waited to be discovered while waiting on tables in Keene, N.H., restaurants. More than once he asked his father about working in his business.
“His answer was always the same,” remembers Richard. He said, “You don't have any relevant experience. Get a job in a machine shop.”
Not only did he not get a related job, he almost became a hairstylist when one of his friends chose that line of work. Fortunately, his career path took a surprising turn one day.
“Without saying why, Dad said, 'I want you to try something,'” recalls Richard. “He cleared a workbench except for a clock, pencils, and paper and tools, and told me to take it [the clock] apart and put it back together.”
“I spent the first couple of hours just staring at the clock. Finally, I got up the nerve to remove the face. Dad came in. took one look and said, 'That's a start.'”
The unemployed actor managed to take the clock apart and put it back together. The only problem: the handful of gears and screws that remained on the workbench.
“Dad came in about then and said simply, 'Try again.'”
By the end of the day, Richard had taken the clock apart and put it together many times. By dinnertime he'd managed to have the completed clock standing on his workbench. There were no extra parts looking for a home.
With classic British understatement, the elder Bates was not effusive in his praise. He said only what Richard wanted to hear: “I'd like you to start working with me tomorrow.”
But he'd said it with a smile.
Eighteen years later, father and son have a successful working relationship that seems to run as smoothly as one of their mechanical restorations. They have workbenches in adjoining rooms. Richard most often answers the phone and schedules pickup and delivery of clients' clocks, but challenging projects come to life in his hands regularly.
With more than 50 years of experience, Ray is still the master. Richard acknowledges that he is still learning.
“Patience is an important skill,” says Ray. “Working on a clock can be meditative or hypnotic. But you can't rush the pace. You can't skip a step or you end up starting all over.”
“Reanimating something that had lost its voice” is the way they both say they see their work. That careful pace is often rewarded with a special moment in time.
“There is tremendous satisfaction,” says Richard, “seeing a customer's jaw drop and then staring at me or Dad. We have seemingly made the impossible possible again.”
Happy customers
A Massachusetts couple bought an antique clock at auction in 1962. There was a clockmaker's mark scratched inside that indicated it had been repaired professionally in Ireland on May 24, 1872. The husband, a tinkerer, according to his wife, managed to keep it running for many years. When he passed away his wife didn't know how to maintain the clock.
“It just stopped,” she said sadly. “I couldn't get the weights wound up.”
The clock sat silent for 10 years.
“It was difficult to find someone to work on it,” she recalled. Finally, a friend referred her to The British Clockmaker. He cleaned the clock and solved the problem of the unwound weight.
“They do it the way it should be done,” she says, smiling.
As a boy, a New Hampshire clock collector fell in love with clocks while helping his grandfather oil and wind his antique timepieces. His wife is also a clock lover.
“We have a ship's clock with a piercing bell,” she says happily. “It drives visitors crazy, but we have it in the center of our home because I love it.”
Another prized possession is their tall, New England case clock from the 1820s. It shows the phases of the moon on its face. One day the pendulum weight cord broke. The heavy lead weight fell through the base of the clock. The owner said Bates did a fabulous job restoring the damaged clock, which is set to follow the moon for another 200 years.
Clockmakers working prior to and during the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries made many other mechanical devices in addition to clocks. They made marine chronometers designed to keep accurate time in spite of motion or variations in temperature, humidity, and air pressure.
Chronometers were first developed for marine navigation and used in conjunction with astronomical observation to determine longitude.
They produced barometers that were used to measure atmospheric pressure. Sailors and farmers needed these instruments to anticipate the weather long before the National Weather Service was only a click away.
They created automata - devices that included toys for the rich, religious idols, and devices for demonstrating basic scientific principles. Automaton movements are powered by clockwork mechanisms.
“In their day, they were often designed as deus ex machina to strike reverential fear into the hearts of simple peasant worshippers in church,” said Ray with evident relish.
Probably the most familiar automaton is the cuckoo that pops out of the cuckoo clock to announce the hour.
Another example of Bates's ability to span past, present, and future is the tiny bird automaton that he built as a present for his wife. Contained in a small wooden box, the life-like bird is the size of child's little finger. It is dressed in feathers donated by a fly-tying friend. When the engraved lid is opened, the bird pops out and its wings flap and its beak opens and closes as it tweets a realistic song.
The centuries speak
Bates's shop is located in his Newfane home. It has 200 years of history, providing a worthy home for a business that breathes new life into antique timepieces. The house was originally a water-powered manufactory. The energy needed for the production of wagons and sleighs was drawn from the stream that runs through the backyard.
The house later became a country inn run by Miss Stella Stockwell.
Before Ray and his wife, Beverly, bought the house, his in-laws ran the Woodshed Tavern in one wing of the building. The bar was long gone before the Bateses moved to Newfane in 1964.
The casual disarray of the clock shop might surprise a visitor. Clocks are everywhere, of course, but there also are piles of papers, a vast collection of tools, photography equipment, multiple phones, computers, and a generous assortment of “stuff.”
Ray's workroom adjoins the machine room that contains two metal lathes and the computer-controlled milling machine. Richard's workbench is nestled in a corner of the machine room.
Nearby, in a narrow, pantry-sized room are the sinks and chemical baths where years of oxidation, corrosion, congealed oil, and dust can be gently washed away.
There is also the testing room. Row upon row of naked clockworks tick, click, and chime away. The mechanisms are kept wound and running for at least two weeks to confirm that all is well. Any final adjustments that might be necessary are easily accomplished before they are placed back in their cases and returned to their owners.
The last business-related space is Ray's photography studio, which is sandwiched between the kitchen and the living room. He is an accomplished photographer who has been published in Vermont Life magazine.
The 4x5 view camera and the expensive Nikon gear share space with storage for the overflow of clock parts and future projects.
Ray seems perfectly comfortable with frequent melding of work and family - of past, present, and future.
“I really am in a kind of time warp,” he says, “because I am one of the few people still practicing today using the techniques that were current 300 years ago.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the move to Newfane. With his son, Richard, keeping one eye on the past, one eye on his current project, and eager to look over his shoulder, The British Clockmaker will be reanimating timepieces for many years to come.