New Rowland Emett Booklet

The Society is publishing the first ever booklet describing and illustrating all of Emett's known machines at the end of June. The 32 page A5 colour booklet will cost £3.00 + p&p and is available to pre-order through the Society Website Shop (under the 'HOME' tab.)

All profits will go to the Rowland Emett Trust to support efforts to promote and preserve Emett's work. The booklet will also be available at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery shop from the end of the month.

The Nottingham Water Clock

We have finished assembling the Nottingham Water Clock at Millennium Point. It took us three days but the Clock is complete. All we need to do now is get her working!

Time ran out Wednesday evening with more adjustments to be made to get the clock fully functional but that will happen over the next few days. The task of getting a 7.5 metre high machine into an 8 metre high space has presented its own challenges. Thanks to Pete Dexter, Ed Copcutt, Janet Griffiths, Richard Partington, Iain Sweetnam and Alison Sweetnam for their work on the assembly. The accepted way of greeting the Clock appears to be "Wow".

The Bouquet

At the centre of the Nottingham Water Clock is a feature that has slowly become less noticeable as it has become tarnished and covered in grime. The bouquet consists of a copper autumn leaf supporting a white cluster of foliage in which a number of woodland birds and animals perch.

The bouquet not at its best.

The leaf had become blackened and covered in dust. It was barely possible to make out that it was actually copper. Wayward coins were found buried in the grime, everything was in a sorry state.

A build up of grime and corrosion.

Photographs from Emett's workshop show the way it was intended to look. The leaf should be bright and shiny as should the animals. The foliage should be white (they are coloured by reflections from the copper leaf).

As Emett intended.

So we have had the whole structure soda blasted and the bright parts polished. The leaf is now clearly copper again and ready to be reassembled with the foliage..

An autumn leaf.

The foliage has been restored by blacksmith and jeweller Shelley Thomas at the Kew Water and Steam Museum using salvaged and newly made parts to replace the corroded foliage using the photographs from the Forge as a reference.

Shelley Thomas in her studio.

The finished piece has been primed and painted white and the woodland animals have been restored to their perches. One the Clock is installed at Millennium Point the bouquet should, once more, make its presence felt.

The foliage repainted white.

The animals are added back.

Waiting for installation.

Frame

The main frame of the clock has had a number of elements removed over the years and has changed colour to a neutral and boring off white. Actually, it may have been white when re-painted but faded with time and grime. Added to this it has suffered the attentions of coins thrown by the public who have difficulty aiming at a large pool of water.

We have now returned the Clock to the way Emett intended it. The frame has been stripped, The upper sections have been primed and painted and the main frame, which sits in water, has been thermal zinc sprayed and powder coated.

The return of the frame.

The main frame can be seen here after returning from the powder coating company. It has regained its height and complexity and has discs of steel to form a base. This is a mixed blessing. It will help with stability but the access doors to the atrium at Millennium Point measure only 2100mm high and 2200mm wide. As the frame is 2800mm high 1700mm wide and 2500mm long it will be a tight squeeze to get it in. Much head scratching and measuring of diagonals has convinced us that there is a way of doing this but it did give pause for thought. It was only after we noticed that the frame is shaped that to slide forward and tip back to go under a door head that we remembered where Emett had fabricated it. The Forge at Streat only has a double door of normal height and everything had to be designed to go through it. We needn't have worried, Emett thought of everything!

Primed and ready.

Clock Cube gets its final coat.

Top section of tower is painted.

Mid section of tower is painted.

Control Box goes blue.

Control box door also goes blue.

Brass highlights.

The upper sections of the frame have been painted in the Aircraft Grey Green colour Emett originally chose and the control box is now his chosen blue so that the brass coloured lattices will stand out against it.

Petals

We are about to install the Nottingham Water Clock at Millennium Point in Birmingham for the Emett Exhibition. The last parts are being finished off ready including the 36 sunflower petals. These have been dismantled, stripped, blasted, polished, copper plated, painted, re-jewelled and re-rivetted and are now somewhat shinier than they were when removed from the clock in February.

 The copper plated brackets.

Polished petals.

Nearly all of the 36 petals.