The only people in the country still making them.
In their own words: the only manufacturers of the weight-driven, pendulum-regulated mechanical tower clock in the United States. The first one they built was the first of its type made in this country since 1964.
A falling weight, released one beat at a time.
Everything on this page is driven the way the clock is driven. The weight in the left-hand margin falls as you read; the barrel it hangs from turns; the escape wheel is let go one tooth at a time and no faster. The pendulum keeps its own time and does not care how quickly you scroll — but each beat gives it a push, and if you stop, it runs down.
Their clocks are advertised on one further point, which anyone who has kept a tower clock will recognise as the whole argument: no monthly oiling.
The Balzers are the only tower clock makers in the U.S.
Donn Haven Lathrop, Clockworks Historian
They began in 1970 as clockmakers and watchmakers. They have specialised in the restoration of tower clocks since 1985, and have built mechanical and electro-mechanical chime systems since 1994. Grandfather, shelf, mantle and wall clocks, and watches, are still taken in.
Cast iron, primed, before any of it goes up a tower.
These are the largest photographs the shop publishes. They are never enlarged here — on a wide screen each stands at its true size.
Harvard, Yale, Duke, Vassar, Williams, Colby — and a barn in Brunswick.
Every entry below is taken from the completed-projects list the shop publishes itself. 14 built new; 58 restored.
Built new — 14
Restored — 58
Two numbers and one address, which is all they publish.
The second number is for grandfather, shelf, mantle and wall clocks. The shop publishes no street address; this redesign has not invented one.