Clockmaker Geared Up Over Time

Very old joke: A man lugs a big grandfather clock into the repair shop and tells the old man behind the counter: "Can you fix this? It doesn't go 'tick-tock' any more; it just goes 'tick.' "

The clock repairman brings out a large flashlight and shines it directly at the clock face. In a heavy German accent he says to the clock: "Ve haff vays of making you tock!"

Joseph Spodick doesn't have an accent, but he, too, has ways of making clocks go tick-tock. I met him a couple of months ago, after finally deciding to seek a repair on my wife's old Delft mantel clock—the one that suddenly stopped chiming on the hour, the half-hour or working at all.  I'd diagnosed the problem myself—it was easy to see that the spring that held the pendulum broke off—but I had no clue how to fix it or where to find a replacement spring. A local jeweler recommended the Spodick Clock Repair—"somewhere" in Franksville.

For three years, I procrastinated, then drove to Franksville and easily found the clock shop at 3143 Roberts St., just a block east of the railroad tracks at Highway K. I crossed my fingers.  A week later came the phone call reporting our clock was fixed. The bill: a mere $25.

Finding the gear

Spodick has been fixing clocks for 22 years—first on High Street in Racine and,  since 2000, at his neat, white, one-story shop in Franksville. Although Spodick is only 51, he came to clockwork late. After graduating from Horlick High, he worked five years at ES Precision Machine then four years at Walker Manufacturing as a tool and die maker. He and his wife, Tammy, then spent the next 13 months touring North America. They cooked on a propane stove and mostly slept in their '77 Chevy van as they covered every state but Hawaii, five Canadian provinces and Mexico.

"We went on the trip thinking we'd find Paradise, and everyone asks us, 'What did you learn?' " Spodick said. "We learned this: It's not where you live; it's how you live."

After returning home, Joe thought he'd paint houses for a living. But at a family picnic, Joe's uncle, a master watchmaker named Calvin Sustachek, suggested Spodick take a course in clock repair. That suggestion changed his life.

"I loved the class and the teacher," Spodick says. 

After graduating the course, he passed the certification test to become a certified clockmaker. Spodick bought a building on High Street and opened for business June 1, 1988.

"This isn't a job. My job is my hobby," he said. "I like repairing clocks. They're fun. I get personal satisfaction. I come in and, by the end of the day, it's running. I say, 'Good day, Joe!' "

His wife does the books, acts as the shop's receptionist and sometimes helps out on the workbench. The shop is crammed with clocks: Their brass innards labeled with their owners' names are neatly spread out around his workbenches in back, in various states of repair. Spodick also sells clocks on consignment for customers. The front of his shop has scores of wall clocks, cuckoo clocks, mantel clocks and tall, grandfather clocks. There are about 250 clocks, in all, throughout the store.

The center of time

Spodick recalls a caller asking him to come over and fix a clock that had been sitting unused for years. He told Spodick he had cancer and that anytime the clock ticked, it reminded him he was a minute closer to death, so he stopped winding it. He went to see Spodick after his cancer went into remission: He wanted the clock restarted. 

Another time, Spodick made a repair call to a nearly empty house. The wife was on a gurney, hooked to intravenous fluids, while the husband sat at a card table. The only furniture were two chairs and a grandfather clock. After paying medical bills, it was all the couple had left. Spodick fixed the clock for free.

"A clock has a life. It's not just a piece of wood and mechanics," he said. "This job makes me a more understanding and compassionate person."

The oldest clock Spodnick has repaired is a tall, thin, 1794 English Bell grandfather clock. Another clock he repaired had a message scratched on the inside: "1849, Bought in honor of the Gold Rush by Uncle George."

Spodnick closes on Wednesdays, when he makes his outcall repairs on clocks that are difficult to move. He recently went to Chicago to fix a mechanism on an 8-foot tall Jewelers Regulator in a 77th-floor condo. With the shop just a few miles from Interstate 94, Spodnick draws customers from Green Bay to Janesville, and Lake Forest to Lake Geneva.

Spodnick turns off the chimes in the clocks at home, where all he can hear is the ticking.

He said, "If it chimes at home, I think of work."

Spodnick's shop is at 3143 Roberts St., Franksville. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday but Wednesday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. Call (262) 321-0102.