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tinkering with clocks tribune may 23 1988 cll what makes jake smith tick stouffville clockmaker jake smith admires his latest creation a skeleton clock although retired the 7iyearoid man still enjoys mak ing intricate time pieces by bruce stapley chances are good that if you were to ask jake smith for the time of day youd get a whole lot more than you bargained for the 76yearold stouffville resi dent has spent most of his like tinkering with time pieces of ev ery description and while he admits to being baffled by so many of todays clocks and watches with their computerized digital read outs there isnt a man alive who better understands the workings of the traditional ticker theres no better proof of that fact than his recently completed project a solid brass skeleton clock that took him almost two years to build the clock so named because there is no housing to hide the mechanism is something he had never attempted to build in all his years of maintaining repairing and selling clocks and watches the skeleton clock was some thing i always wanted to build he says the other year i said i better get at it it took two months just to figure out his plan for the gears such was the complication of the pro ject everything has to be made right he explains he will tell you how an eightleaf pinion must have an exact 14 degree angle in its set up or it wont work and how he found that out the hard way i tried it with 14 degrees and it wouldnt work but at 14 it rolled like a belt for jake it was important that the clock be designed and built totally by himself and given the mans impressive abilities at things mechanical it is no wonder it turned out so well while he didnt keep track of the hours saying those things dont matter when its just a hobby his wife bernice claims he would slip out to his little workshop behind the house day and night until it was completed i hadnt made those kind of gears in 50 years he said refer ring back to the days when he served his clockmaking appren ticeship for a master clock maker in richmond hill in the 1930s i apprenticed under jerry smith my fathers first cousin he was a member of the horological insti tute in toronto when i started to build my skeleton clock there were times i wished i could have had old jerry around to show me how but the end result has more than demonstrated jakes own prowess he claims the clock keeps perfect time and due to the nature of its construction he fi gures it will be keeping time for many a year that clock should last centur ies he says proudly the main wheels arc inch brass being a perfectionist jake made the clock with a deadbeat escape ment which he claims is much harder to make and set up than the more common ticking con trols known as anchor or recoil escapements it has to be per fect or it wont run to top it off jake found an anti que glass dome in pennsylvania to act as a dust cover for his skeleton clock he then went ab out the task of building a base out of birds eye maple and cabinet of walnut on which the clock and base stand his woodworking expertise which has led to the building of his own dining and bedroom fur nishings dates back to when he was a 16 year old on his fathers farm north of unionville where he was born and raised i went to work one winter for another farmer who was also a carpenter he recalls i told him id like to build a grandfather clock so he let me go ahead and build one in oak his grandfather had been a talented woodworker and jake feels he may have inherited some of his natural ability i still have a cradle that my grandfather made he says jake came to stouffville in 1940 where he got married he then bought a jewelry business in the old rateliff block where the bank of commerce now stands i re member paying s15 a month for rent i did mainly clock and watch repairs he would change locations moving to the building which now houses the blue orchid res taurant in 1945 and finishing out his career in what is now the woolwinder from 1954 to 1977 his recollections of the stouff ville business district in those days are vivid and he maintains that on a saturday night there were so many people milling around that it was as busy as the city and though he officially retired after closing the door in 77 he has never been without a project on the go i love making things he admits and when it is finished t love to sec it go while most of his efforts have been directed towards clock building or repairing and furni- ture building he hasnt been above trying new fields of en- deavor when the contractor stood him up after promising to build a fire place several years back he set about the task of studying what was involved in building it him- self and proceeded to construct an impressive fireplace out of tennessee and georgia marble jake still has the first clock he ever built i built it on the farm when i was 14 he remembers my brothers and sisters told me it wouldnt be ticking in the morn- ing but it was its crude and it needs to be rebuilt but ive never gotten around to it i but his grandfather clock builfj while serving his apprenticeship still stands proudly in his dining room along with his unique cor ner cabinets and sideboard i still have the blueprints for it he maintains and while his own personal time clock keeps ticking hes just as keen as he ever was when i comes to clocks everybodys got to have a hob by he concludes affordable housing a strain on sewers stouffville should council give away six units of sewage space from its industrial reserve to provide affordable apartment housing in a success square addition most members say no j mayorfjransainsburytold iplanning advisbricohim old at fitted fewer rrieetingmay 17 sufficient sewen allocation is needed to clean up j the area along hwy 47 to ringj wood no offense intended but its not a pretty sight she said she recommended the town stick by its commitment councillor wilf morley agreed he said the matter of sewer allocation would be reopened fori discussion at the end of june we should wait until then he advised but councillor jim sanders dis agreed i think we should take the six units and provide the affordable housing we need so badly to which councillor margo marshall responded you keep saying stouffville shouldnt grow then you try and create affordable housing i think you should give second thoughts to the balance of sewage water and growth jeremy grant proponent of the apartments was told he could still proceed with the plaza addif tion but residential expansioij would have to wait sunroofs from a auto clam 15 laidlaw blvd markham 2943149 standard as mtocus craftsmjuishie inside and ouh