![]() That discipline remains evident even as modern tools, such as a milling machine that can be set electronically, have made the clock-restoration business a bit easier. But it requires tremendous patience, and not too many people are interested in that kind of self-discipline. It takes a unique person - like Richard, like me - a little bit compulsive, although we claim not to be. "The four-year apprenticeship requires tremendous work and concentration. It's a pretty grueling training," he said. The British Clockmaker officially was founded in Newfane in 1964, and, as Bates worked to grow his business in Vermont, he trained several apprentices. ![]() "People just wouldn't leave me alone when they knew I was a clockmaker, so it was pretty easy to make the transition," Bates says with a laugh.īates, his young family and his business eventually relocated to Newfane after the death of his father-in-law, who had been running an inn in a 19th-century home here. In fact, even as he was teaching full-time, he had been plying his original trade from home. So Bates fell back on his master-clockmaker training. "I also had gotten married, and we were raising a family, so teaching just didn't pay enough to make sense - although I loved it," he said. He put that degree to work in Massachusetts. "My initial intent," he added, "was just to stay here for a couple years and work my way around, get the experience and then go back."Īfter working for a Keene jeweler for a while, Bates went back to school and earned a degree to teach English. It was wide open for anybody coming from the United Kingdom at that time, so I had 10 job offers throughout the United States, ranging all the way from Keene, N.H., to Georgia." "When I came to this country, I had to have a job. That's when I decided to come (to the United States) in 1957," Bates recalled. The roots of Ray Bates' business stretch far from Vermont: He learned the clock-making craft in Scotland via a five-year apprenticeship while also earning a mechanical-engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh.īates was making a living doing work for various companies when he decided a change of scenery was in order. "There haven't been any good clocks made for maybe 100 years that we consider the same quality as the ones made 300 or 400 years ago." ![]() We can't guarantee their reliability," his father said. "We don't work on modern clocks, because they're mass-produced, and we can't guarantee their quality. In fact, the clock for which Richard Bates expressed such admiration dates to the dawn of the 20th century, and it may be one of the newest models that these craftsmen would consider a worthwhile project. The business is Ray Bates and his son, Richard, and together they manage a backlog of work from eager customers in spite of the fact that they specialize in rare antiquities.
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