Workshops editor
Ellis Mauro
Ellis Mauro spent twelve years restoring clocks at a small workshop in Berlin's Neukölln before he started writing about other restorers.
Beats
Published in The Pewter
A Specialist Clock Sale Outside Boston
One afternoon at a single-discipline clock auction in Marlborough, where the bidders all know each other and the catalogue is a working census.
Longcase Clock Dials and Movements: Reading the Maker's Mark
An eight-day longcase clock arrived at Ellis Mauro's Berlin workshop in March, sent down from a private estate in Lübeck. The brass dial bore the engraved name Thomas Mudge, London; the movement, on inspection, told a more complicated story.
A Federal Tall-Case Clock from Coastal Connecticut, Re-Leathered and Re-Cased
A cherrywood tall-case clock signed Levi Hutchins, c. 1798, came into a Hudson workshop with a split case, a fatigued bellows leather, and a brass dial that had not been touched in eighty years.
The Cabinet Scraper's Quiet Edge: A Tool Older Than Sandpaper
Before sandpaper was a household item, a small rectangle of hardened steel did most of the smoothing in a furniture workshop. It still does, in the workshops that know how to sharpen one.
Polishing Brass Without Stripping the Patina: A Ship's Clock from 1894
A Chelsea Clock Company eight-day ship's bell clock, brought back over five months by a Cape Cod horologist with rouge, a soft mop, and patience.
A Piano Restorer in Berlin Neukölln
Sigrid Vohwinkel restrings, refelts, and reactions German uprights in a courtyard workshop off Hermannstraße. On a Saturday in April, she finishes a 1908 Blüthner.
Newark Flea Market at Sunrise
Six in the morning on a cold Sunday in April, when the dealers are still unloading and the picker culture of the New York metro area is fully visible.
The Clockmaker's Son in Coastal Maine
Theodore Aroostook inherited his father's bench, his father's loupe, and a backlog of repairs going back to 1979. From a shed in Stonington, he keeps American shelf clocks running.
An 18th-Century Brass Stick Barometer, Back to Working Order
A George III mercury stick barometer signed J. Ramsden, London, came into the workshop with a fractured tube and an empty cistern. The work of refilling it, in 2026, is no longer simple.