Like many people in rural North Dakota, my friend Ken Muggli works from home.   Ken is a clockmaker who utilizes the internet to run his business successfully.  The following is Ken’s description of his job.

Horology (n.)  The art and science of measuring time or making timepieces (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1964). 

I am a Horologist.  I repair clocks and timepieces.  I will share with you a typical day in my life, the life of a horologist.

I still get up early, many times before the birds.  The first thing I do is fire up the computer and check for e-mails from customers or potential customers.  I receive a large number of e-mails daily from folks with questions about their clocks.  Some of these folks just want a manual or a pair of hands.  Some are so proud of their clocks I can almost see it in their writing.  Some folks are sick because their treasured family heirloom clock has stopped, and they almost beg me to help them.

Regardless of their need I take the time to answer one and all.  My customers seem to feel a great deal of relief at finding someone that understands their problem and takes time and interest in it.  It is very satisfying.

After answering my e-mail I move on to organizing my day, including telephone calls to suppliers looking for parts and calls to customers to update them on the progress of their clocks.  Morning time for me is creative time; sometimes I compose articles I write for a trade journal, sometimes I revise my internal policies and procedures.  Morning time is writing time.

By nine o’clock the phone starts to ring and the e-mails start to come in for the day.  It’s a busy office time for me.  As soon as I can catch up on my e-mail and telephone calls (many days I do not catch up until it is lunch time), I go to the shop and start or continue the repair of a clock for somebody. 

Almost every clock is a surprise.  It’s a suprise that there is so much variability in the things I need to do to repair it.  A person who repairs clocks has to be good at improvising. 

In the process of repairing a clock I do operations like polishing little bearings called ‘pivots.’  Some pivots I do by hand using a very small lathe.  Some pivots I polish in a purposely built pivot polisher unique to my trade.  

I frequently rebuild small gears called ‘lantern pinions.’  This is delicate work as the ‘trundles’ or leaves of the pinion gear are usually less than .032 inch in diameter.  I also frequently drill holes in the clock plate and install ‘bushings’ into the cloke plates.  The pivots mentioned above are the parts that run in the bushings.

Polishing and adjusting the ‘escapement assembly’ is a very important part of what I do.  The adjustment of the escapmement is done while looking thorugh 10x ocular.  There is far more to repairing a clock than described above; this description only scratches the surface.

After the benchwork is finished comes the fun part–the assembly of the clock, when I put all the gears and levers back in.  I like assembly.  I work slowly, puting the parts back in one at a time, little by little, untily they settle into their positions. 

The gears, as I install them, have to be installed in a very specific order, not only to get the right two gears working together but to get specific teeth of certain gears to mesh with certain other teeth in the right sequence.  At first this looks very intimidating.  In time it becomes almost automatic, and I love it.

I love it when the last part slips into position and the plates snap toether with a little click.  I get such a feeling of satisfaction.  It’s another clock assembled.

I can’t count the number of times folks have brought me defective clocks, carrying them like they have the trigger to a nuclear bomb in their hands, with long sad eyes and a story about the clock’s history.  Whey they come back to pick up their clocks and see them ticking happily away and hear the chimes, they almost melt with pleasure.  The delivery of the clock and the joy it brings is the real pay-off for me.  Repairing clocks is helping others be happy.

Clock work is close work.  Much attention has to be paid to very small details, and you have to have a great deal of ingenuity.  Because of all the little surprises and ingenuity you have to use to slove the problems, clock work is also very satisfying.