“I was a real stickler for details,” Bates recalls. Then Bates got into model airplanes, constructing them as if they needed to safely transport mini-people. “He and I used to build our own radios and do all kinds of experimenting,” he recalls. right!” Bates’ innate mechanical curiosity was pushed along by his father, an electrical engineer. “Oh, yes,” he says with apparent surprise, “that’s. The oldest clock in his shop is from 1690, and it hangs on the wall like most of the others small and unassuming, the slightly frayed ropes barely hint at its advanced age.Īsked how he got into this arcane profession, Bates haltingly calls forth a memory as if no one’s ever asked him the question before: When he was 6 years old, he took apart a Japanese alarm clock and put it back together again correctly. Needless to say, you can’t go out and buy parts for 300-year-old clocks, so Bates crafts the inner workings out of brass and steel. Bates says the earliest clocks were made in Italy, sometime around the 14th-century. His principle task these days is to restore antique clocks, and in clock-speak, “antique” means that the time-keeping device predates the Industrial Revolution. It’s too bad, because on the other side of the door are some of the oldest, most ornate clocks on the planet, and a distinguished gentleman with a Scottish lilt, pale blue eyes and a deep well of mechanical, and aesthetic, skill.īates is a Master Clockmaker, which means he endured a rigorous five-year apprenticeship in his hometown of Edinburgh, obtained a degree in mechanical engineering, and wrapped it all up by crafting a masterpiece clock. But you don’t just drop by for a visit - he’s got a six-month backlog and keeps the place locked tight to prevent tourists from wandering in. It’s the only white colonial in Newfane with a giant Union Jack painted on the door. The home and workshop of Ray Bates, “The British Clockmaker,” is not hard to find.
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