Michael’s Hobbies
Michael’s Hobbies
You might wonder why we would put a page about Michael’s hobbies on our website.
We don’t blame you for wondering. The fact is, we believe that Michael’s hobbies prepared him for a life in clock repair. His love of history dovetails nicely with the wonderful history behind clocks and their development over the last several centuries. The hobby of reading opened up the door to the rich past of clock innovators and the many businesses that have come and gone, information he would not have learned otherwise. The skills learned from building plastic model kits and the detail-oriented mind necessary to do it well, surely prepared him for the intricacies of clock mechanisms and their repair. His love for drawing and painting and a simple appreciation of art as a whole, blends perfectly with the fact that clocks have always been a mix of art and function.
For these reasons, we thought many of our customers might be interested in this part of his life. We were proven right when we saw the number of people visiting this page. In fact, we have had over 48,000 views of his hobby page, putting it in the top ten of the most popular pages on our website.
Painting
Michael has always loved art. He took art in school every chance he could get. Unfortunately, he never spent much time painting and never in oil. One morning many years after high school his then very young son, Christian and him were up early one Saturday morning channel surfing when they saw Bob Ross's painting program, "The Joy of Painting" on PBS. They stopped to watch, mesmerized by the speed in which he created the beautiful painting. Michael commented to his son that he would love to try painting sometime, imagining himself many years from now in retirement painting beautiful landscapes. Lo and behold, the following Christmas there was a Bob Ross paint set setting under the tree. No since waiting for retirement, he had to give it a try.
He completed about 7 or 8 paintings on his own never quite happy with the results. Some parts of the painting looked very good, whereas others were severely lacking. He decided to take a painting class. The two paintings below were the result of a little education. Once he took the class, he quickly learned that there were things Mr. Ross was not telling you during his very short programs.
Michael prefers his paintings to have more color in them, but these happened to be what the instructor was teaching the two weekends that he took the class. The muted colors do lend a certain "old world" quality to them.
With the additional instruction Bob had left out he was able to complete a couple paintings that he was mostly happy with. Unfortunately, He has not had a chance to paint again since these were painted in 2003.
Drumming
Michael has been playing drums since the age of 14 and has been in various local bands over the years including a 14-year stint as a drummer for the worship team at a church he used to attend. He did not take drumming very seriously until he was in his 30's when he began to learn to read drum music and applied himself to learning more difficult drum arrangements, particularly the music of the rock band Rush. Other than clock repair, there is nothing else he has spent more time doing. Below are photos of his drum kits. He shifted toward electronic drums in the 1990’s to save his wife from having to listen to him banging away practicing in the basement.
Model Building
When Michael was in elementary school, the local 7-11 used to carry model car kits. As a young boy, the cars that interested him the most were those that looked like the cartoons he used to watch. He would buy them and rush home immediately and begin to put them together in his back yard, usually in one sitting. he rarely painted them and if he did, he did not do a very good job. Using an air brush or even a can of spray paint was unheard of at the time. Most of these models ended up getting set on fire with lighter fluid or blown up with firecrackers.
Almost all of the "cartoon like”, over the top, car models he built were designed by a man named Tom Daniel. In the car world, they are called "Show Rods" since they are unique “one-offs”. For nostalgic purposes, as he grew older, he decided to begin re-purchasing some of these kits from his youth that he had built so poorly. None of them were available at hobby shops at the time so he had to go to eBay to find them. Over the years he has been able to accumulate some of these "memories" and a few of them are shown below.
The T’rantula
He often spends months finishing a single model. Once complete, they go under a case to keep them dust free. No firecrackers for these models.
The S’cool Bus
The Dragon Wagon
One of my all-time favorites
The Street Fighter
The Hang Man
One of the more elaborately themed show cars
California Street Vette
A bit more serious than the others. We mentioned Tom Daniel earlier. Other than the Deal’s Wheels models above, Tom Daniel designed all the others. The Street Vette was a model of his actual Corvette!
The two models below really are “cartoon like”
These were designed by a man named Dave Deal and were called “deal’s Wheels.
German World War II Tank
He has also built a number of “very serious” models as well. He loved World War II aircraft and tanks.
Model Building Continued
This model deserves its own section. This one is called the “Koo-Koo Kar”. The model was issued in 1969 and never reissued. Although he was not aware of this model as a child, once he knew it existed, being a clockmaker, he had to have it. This is the most money he ever paid for a model, but he knew he would enjoy building it and thought his customers would love it. He spent over a year finishing it.
The three photos above show some of the extras Michael added to the model using actual cuckoo parts. The center photo shows a large and small brass cuckoo gear with an actual cuckoo chain wrapped around them. The photo at right shows the interior of the car with the back wall containing a portion of an actual cuckoo movement.
The smaller parts of the model were all hand painted using the “dry brushing” technique which brings out the details in the bird’s feathers, the moose and rabbit’s fur and the wood grain on the gun stock and the sides of the koo-koo case.
Of course we would normally see a deer head on the top of the cuckoo but this koo-koo kar is far from ordinary. This one has a moose head instead!
Michael’s Reversable Image of His Name
Hopefully you can clearly see the word “MIKE” here. What is unique is that it will look exactly the same if you turn it upside down.
DRAWING
Michael’s favorite thing to do in art class was drawing with pencils. Unfortunately, he has devoted precious little time to it in his adult life. Here is an unfinished drawing of his beloved, late doberman “Ares”.
