Randolph Clocksmith Skip Sjobeck Turns Back the Hands of Time on Antique Clocks 

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• Ben Deflorio
• Skip Sjobeck

Noon in Skip's Clock Shop in Randolph sounds a lot like the introduction to Pink Floyd's 1972 song "Time." Before the hour strikes, the windowless workshop is quiet except for the steady ticking of the scores of antique timepieces that line its walls and shelves.

Then a rising wave of mechanical melodies swells to a crescendo: the steady, baritone bonging of grandfather clocks; the two-tone chimes of mantel clocks; the rapid pinging of a ship's clock, whose four bells once marked the end of sailors' watch at sea; and the frantic cries of cuckoo clocks, their faces animated by miniature twirling dancers and defenestrating birds.

Standing serenely amid the clockwork clamor is Skip Sjobeck, 43, a clocksmith who learned the trade from his father when he was still in high school.

"I don't hear the ticking anymore," Sjobeck told a Seven Days reporter once the hourly strikes fell silent. "It's just background noise."

Sjobeck (pronounced SHOW-beck) has sold and repaired clocks full time since 1998. In 2011, he took over the shop from his father, Charlie Sjobeck, and has operated it mostly solo ever since. He specializes in antique timepieces, mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries — clocks but not watches, because the latter demand a different set of skills and tools.

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• Ben DeFlorio
• Skip's Clock Shop

Occasionally, Sjobeck gets an inexplicable rush of customers bringing in antique clocks, many of them family heirlooms that need to be repaired, cleaned, oiled or refurbished. During a recent six-day period, 42 clocks came through his door. When that happens, Charlie, 81, walks over from his house across the road to lend a hand.

On the day we met, Skip Sjobeck sported a salt-and-pepper beard, a gray hoodie, tan Carhartts and a Shimano fishing cap. Taciturn but friendly, he has a placid demeanor that seems well suited to both his solitary profession and his angling.

"I have a good sense of time," he said. "I can be out ice fishing and say, 'It's two o'clock,' and it'll be 2:10."

That's lucky, because he doesn't wear a watch, for practical reasons. Sjobeck explained that a technician's watch can easily scratch up a clock or get snagged on the interior gears, springs, chains or pendulum. And replacement parts for the antique clocks he works on aren't easy to track down. When he can't find parts though a nationwide network of dealers, Sjobeck uses his own lathes and gear-cutting tools to make them himself.

As we perused the shop's offerings, Sjobeck pointed out some of the rarer timepieces in his inventory of 500 to 600. One wall clock, known as a figure eight, was made by 19th-century Boston firm E. Howard. This particular figure eight, one of the smaller clocks in the E. Howard series, sells for $6,500.

Across the aisle is a larger, freestanding clock, made by Riley Whiting of Winchester, Conn. It contains an all-wooden "movement," or internal mechanism, with oak side plates, cherry gears and maple shafts.

Sjobeck explained that American clockmakers started building movements out of wood during the War of 1812, when brass was scarce; few were made after 1830. Clockmaker Whiting traveled from town to town selling his movements. Local cabinetmakers then built the clocks' cabinets around them, and their wives would often paint the dials.

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• Ben Deflorio
• Skip's Clock Shop

On humid summer days, the wooden parts can swell and run less reliably, Sjobeck noted, but more than two centuries later, these clocks still keep remarkably good time.

Among the oldest pieces in Sjobeck's shop is a grandfather clock built in the late 1700s, with a second hand. Some of his other grandfather clocks have dials indicating the phases of the moon. One, made in 1866, has a calendar that automatically adjusts for the different number of days in each month. Some still feature their original manufacturers' warranties, printed on now-yellowed paper and glued inside.

Many of Sjobeck's clocks once sat on fireplace mantels or stood in the foyers, parlors or professional offices of the well-to-do. Others were clearly meant for public display, such as wall clocks that advertise Coca-Cola, Jolly Tar Pastime and Baird Tobacco. Some were made in Montréal, others in Plattsburgh, N.Y. But most of the clocks in the shop, Sjobeck said, were handmade in New England and purchased at auctions in Vermont and New Hampshire.

In an era when virtually all digital devices display the date and time, Sjobeck can testify that the public's understanding of mechanical clockworks is fading with remarkable speed. He said his father was so often asked, "How do these clocks work?" that he finally removed the cabinet from a clock and hung it on the wall so his customers could examine its inner workings.

As his son explained, most antique clocks are driven by springs or weights. Both kinds need to be wound with a key, usually weekly, though so-called "30-hour clocks" need daily winding. Weight-driven clocks tend to keep more accurate time, Sjobeck said, because the weights apply an even pressure on the gears, whereas spring-driven clocks can slow throughout the week as their springs unwind.

When you wind a weight-driven clock, the weights, which hang alongside the pendulum, ascend toward the clockface and transfer their power to the spinning gears. (You cannot overwind a clock, Sjobeck noted, unless you apply too much force.) A typical grandfather clock has three hanging weights: The largest powers the quarter-hour chime, the second largest drives the clock's hands and pendulum, and the third largest powers the hour strike.

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• Ben Deflorio
• Skip Sjobeck fixing a clock

Much of Sjobeck's work involves fixing gears whose teeth have broken, replacing worn bushings or removing oil that has congealed over time. For centuries, clockmakers used whale oil on the gears, but today Sjobeck uses mostly synthetics. Once an antique clock is professionally cleaned and oiled, he said, it can run reliably for 10 to 20 years without additional maintenance.

"It just depends on the environment," he said. "Some [clockmakers] say every two to three years, but that's ... more about job security."

One customer who recently sought out Sjobeck's services was Beth Damon of Montpelier. A retired architect, designer and educator, Damon inherited two antique clocks from her grandmother, both of which are now on display in her Montpelier inn.

Damon's wall clock, which was made in 1903 by noted clockmaker Seth Thomas, once hung in a relative's law office in Boston. It was in rough shape when Damon inherited it two years ago, missing its weights and pendulum, and several of the parts clattering around inside were from different timepieces.

Damon brought it to Sjobeck, who tracked down period-accurate replacement parts and got it running again. She said it's now accurate to within 30 seconds.

"The length of [the pendulum] had to be custom-fitted to the clock, and Skip knew just what to do," Damon said. "And he did it so quickly! I thought it would be six months. He did a really great job."

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• Ben Deflorio
• Charlie Sjobeck

At about 12:30 p.m., Charlie Sjobeck dropped by the shop to say hello. A garrulous man with bushy eyebrows, a thick beard and a frizzy ponytail, Charlie learned to repair clocks by watching the owner of a clock shop in West Lebanon, N.H., across the road from his workplace at the time.

"During my lunch hour, I'd watch Slim working on clocks and said, 'Gosh! That looks interesting,'" Charlie recalled. Soon, he was buying clocks at yard sales, taking them apart and reassembling them.

"I got to where I could take an eight-day [clock] apart, scramble all the pieces and put them back together in 49 minutes — and have it work," he said.

By the late 1970s, Charlie was repairing clocks in his free time for Bill Mather of Randolph Center, a now-deceased fellow in the National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors. In the early 1980s, when Charlie had to give up his snowmobile and motorcycle franchises in South Royalton, he devoted himself to working on clocks full time.

Over the years, the Sjobecks have had clients send them clocks for repair from as far away as Alaska. Charlie recalled one customer from Bogotá, Colombia, who visited the shop. The man took a bunch of photos and left without making a purchase. Charlie never expected to hear from him again. But a few weeks later, the Colombian called and ordered 11 clocks to be shipped to him in South America.

Charlie said his favorite part of repairing antique clocks is "restoring a piece of history. I've restored clocks that were in fires and clocks that smashed on the floor ... I wish they could talk. What they have seen ... every one of them could tell a story."

Skip is less inclined than his father to wax poetic about his work.

"What I like is, it's not repetitive. They're all a little bit different," he said.

It's an unexpected answer, given that his work is all about mechanical parts that go around in circles. But, given the age and variety of antique timepieces in Skip's Clock Shop, few people can say their work offers them a view of such vast sweeps of time.